The Second Trial
by tinseltown
Summary: Sequel to Heading Home. Bucky thought just recovering his memories would be enough to save himself. But one year after he's done so, things are still disturbing him. He's started to have strange nightmares and blackouts, he can't stop wrestling with odd feelings for a certain someone, & strange new threats loom on the horizon. Things are about to get even more twisted than before.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: So here we are! The sequel to **_**Heading Home**_**. I couldn't help but come back to these characters. I missed them. Some things to note about this story:**

**Where **_**Heading Home **_**was very action- and Bucky-oriented, I think you'll find that **_**The Second Trial **_**is going to have a lot more focus on different relationships between different people. It'll have a lot of action, of course, but more personal stuff than **_**Heading Home **_**did. Also, though the POV will mainly by Bucky's (as it was in **_**Heading Home**_**), I'm going to probably throw in some other peoples' POVs as well. **

**Regarding plot…I'll call it slightly AU. Because I only have vague details from **_**Age of Ultron **_**to work off of and **_**Guardians of the Galaxy **_**is not out yet. So I'm going to be mixing up things I've looked up from the existing MCU, the coming movies, slight elements from the Marvel comics, slight elements from Agents of SHIELD (though I'll be changing some stuff from the show) and then I'll be making up some of it on my own as well. So expect to see some nods to the MCU and Marvel comics but don't expect the story to follow 100% canon. **

**For the sake of this story, the Winter Soldier never trained Natasha in the Red Room. **

**For anyone who wants to read this story…it's probably best that you start by reading my story **_**Heading Home**_**. Otherwise you might be pretty confused! **

**Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and make no profit off of anything. Only my original characters belong to me.**

* * *

ONE YEAR LATER.

"Sergeant, duck!" The shout came from behind him and Bucky immediately jackknifed in half backwards, bending his back in such a quirk and jerky way that any ordinary human would have snapped their spine had they tried to do so. It was just as well that he did it because a nanosecond later a knife whizzed through the air where his throat had been and slammed into the wooden wall behind him so hard it actually quivered. He sprung up just in time to see Agent Lewinski—who was moving a bit clumsily, his sharp eyes noted—tackle the man who had thrown the knife and begin beating the hell out of him. He could see that Agent Lewinski was moving a little more slowly than usual, for some reason, so he called, "I got this, Lewinski." She leaped off the man, Bucky pulled out his gun, and shot the man in the head. The man crumpled, dark blood spreading across the swaying floors of the small boat. Bucky didn't even flinch. This man was worthless—he'd helped plan an attack that had gotten several schoolchildren killed. Bucky made a strict no tolerance policy for people who harmed children.

Bucky took out his flashlight—special issued by SHIELD—and, taking care not to shine it in the direction of the other pirate ship behind him, he flashed it into the distance, flickering it on and off a few times in rapid succession. This was the signal for the others. Lewinski dropped to her knees and then crawled over to the side of the boat, leaning against it, panting heavily. A steady stream of blood poured down the side of her stark-white face and Bucky frowned, wondering how long it would take for her to get here.

Not long, apparently. She—and two other agents—quickly shimmied up the side of the boat, taking care to stay very silent. She knelt by Lewinski and he heard her say, "Lay still," as she began to clean up Lewinski's head wound. All around them were fallen French pirates; Lewinski and Bucky had made short work of them. The other two agents began to wrap the documents Bucky had retrieved in air-tight, waterproof plastic bags. Bucky looked behind him at the other pirate ship laying dormant in the distance. It was far away enough that they hadn't noticed the slight commotion going on on their sister ship—but Bucky knew that they could be here in minutes if they had to.

The two agents finished wrapped up the documents, saluted Bucky, and then made their way over to the other side of the rocking boat. As they went, one of the agents stumbled across a thick wire and yanked on it with his foot. All the lights on the boat they were on suddenly fused out and Bucky heard the agent mutter, "Shit!" before he and the other man silently dove overboard.

Bucky heard faint yells from behind him so he turned and squinted across the dark night, not daring to turn his flashlight on. The men on the other boat had seen that the lights on _this _boat had gone out and they had gotten suspicious, it seemed. He could hear them yelling and see silhouettes waving their arms at this boat in strange motions and he cursed. They had pre-planned signals up their sleeves. He couldn't wave back and hope they'd think he was a pirate because he didn't know what the return signal was.

He turned back to the young woman kneeling by Lewinski on the ground. "Ari, we have to go," he ordered, standing over her. "The ones on the other boat are going to come here any minute now, and I can't—"He had been about to say _And I can't stop them on my own _but he stopped lest he offend her. He wasn't insinuating that she was weak. After a year of training in the field and in the gyms and weaponry mastering, Ari was pretty good in combat situations. She was definitely better than the average human woman. But nothing she did changed the fact that she was very slender and didn't have much muscle mass and she still had a long ways to go, regarding building skill. Bucky could still disarm and pin her down in his sleep, if he wanted to (though, of course, measuring her skill against a super-soldier's wasn't exactly fair, since he could disarm and pin down even the most experienced and skilled agents such as Romanoff, Barton, and May).

"Wait," said Ari urgently. "I'm not done with Lewinski—" She had hastily cleaned and stitched up the head wound but one look at Lewinski and Bucky knew it was a lost cause. Her skin had taken on an ashen-gray pallor, her eyes were glittering and unfocused, a sheen of sweat covered her face, and she was taking deep rattling breaths that seemed like it was hurting her deeply to even breathe. She wasn't going to survive this trip.

"Ari, we have to go _now_—"

"I don't understand," Ari muttered in frustration. "Why would just a head wound do this—?" She ripped open Agent Lewinski's vest and stifled a gasp as she saw the gunshot in her stomach, blood and guts oozing out. Lewinski had buttoned up her vest tightly to keep her insides from falling out, so she could keep fighting. Who knew how long she had slowly been leaking blood like this? "Why didn't you tell me about this wound?" Ari hissed, her face pale. "Ashley!"

Bucky looked behind him and stifled a groan. The other pirate ship was now gliding towards them. The other crew would be here in a matter of minutes. He looked down at Agent Ashley Lewinski, who was looking back at him, though she was having trouble focusing. Her mouth trembled but she gave him one resolute nod that said she knew what he needed to do now and she gave him permission to do so.

"At ease, Agent Lewinski," he said. "You've been of great service to me and to your country." This was going to be painful—Lewinski had been a part of his team for some months now—but it had to be done. And Bucky was always willing to do the dirty work to get the deed done. He pulled out his pistol and shot Lewinski in the heart. A clean, neat shot that gave her instant death with minimal pain. His pistol had a silencer on it so the approaching pirates wouldn't hear them. He grabbed Ari around the waist, yanked her up, and silently dove overboard, neatly slicing through the icy, inky water. Ari knew what protocol to follow in this scenario but he knew he'd be able to move more quickly, so he fumbled around for a few seconds to hook himself onto Ari and then they were both off, swimming to the rendezvous point. She was swimming as fast as he could, but he was much faster, so it was more like he was pulling her along. They swam for fifteen minutes, coming up every few minutes for air. Holding their breath underwater for long periods of time was something every SHIELD agent was taught right away. It came in very handy. They had picked a good night to come on this mission; there was no moonlight and the night was dark and windy, so the pirates would never see or hear them. All they'd find was the body of a dead SHIELD agent and their stolen documents missing. They'd know what had happened, of course, but what could they do about it?

Finally they pulled up to their rendezvous point, which was just a floating buoy in the middle of the sea. The other agents were gone; they'd already been picked up and taken away back to their main boat. He and Ari would have to wait until the next rotation came by to retrieve them. It was inconvenient—he would have preferred to be immediately airlifted by helicopter—but SHIELD wasn't exactly high-powered these days, and it had to make do with whatever it got. Ari clung to the buoy, soaking wet and shivering from the cold, her dark hair plastered to her face, and angrily whispered, "You didn't have to _kill _her! We could have brought her back, Soldier."

He gripped the back of her wet head and forced her to look him in the eyes. "Listen to me," he whispered, his tone hard. "You need to stop being so soft or you're going to get yourself killed. You're in the field now, Ari. There was _nothing_ we could have done for Lewinski. If you'd stayed, the pirates would have found you and either held you hostage or murdered you—and they'd have a bit of their own fun with you before either of those things." A boat full of criminal men and a young female agent—it didn't take a genius to figure out what would happen next. This was a concern that Ari would always face that _he _didn't have to worry about and the unfairness of it burned at him. His stomach clenched at the thought of the pirates hurting her that way and he shook her shoulder slightly. "Do you understand?" he whispered, searching her blue eyes for any sign that she did. He had to _make _her understand, otherwise she'd get herself seriously injured one of these days. She was a good agent but her heart and her head didn't always cooperate. Add that to her natural stubbornness and it was a recipe for disaster.

"Yes," she whispered with a defeated look on her face and he knew she was mourning Agent Lewinski. She hadn't even been a close friend of Ari's but he knew she hated to leave people behind. As she'd once said—she saved lives, she didn't end them. So not being able to save someone always affected her more forcefully than others.

They bobbed there in the dark, holding onto the buoy and treading water. Bucky gritted his teeth at the icy-cold numbness that was taking over his extremities. Just as he was beginning to think the wait was becoming unbearable, a small boat glided through the darkness and knocked lightly into the buoy. There were no lights on it but Bucky could see the dark shapes on board quickly pulling Ari out of the water. He was next. They dragged him above board and then he lay on the boat, soaking and shivering until someone wrapped a thick towel around him and they cut through the night silently, heading for their larger ship where the entire team waited. It was time to head back.

"Mission status, Sergeant?" an agent asked him.

"Mission accomplished," he said tiredly.

* * *

From small boat to slightly larger boat. From slightly larger boat to Range Rover waiting on land. From Range Rover to small airplane hidden in a clearing miles away. From small airplane back to the United States. All of this had to be done very quickly and as silently as possible. The entire mission was on radio silence, meaning they didn't communicate back with anyone at SHIELD headquarters at all. Bucky didn't even know what they were retrieving but then again, he didn't have level clearance to know that. All he knew was that Fury wanted these documents and he wanted them badly. And when Fury wanted something, he did everything in his power to get it.

Not only was Fury extremely tenacious, but he was absolutely ruthless sometimes. Bucky had never met someone who was so hardened and tough. They touched down on American soil and for the first time, they (or, rather, the pilot) radioed into SHIELD headquarters. "Director wants you back at headquarters," he told Bucky as they all climbed out of the small aircraft. Bucky was beyond exhausted and all he wanted to do was go home to his apartment and sleep for a day straight but he knew putting off Fury was impossible. He also knew Fury cared little for the fact that his field operatives were likely to be tired. So he nodded like the good person he supposedly now was and got into the waiting car. Ari and the two other agents who'd accompanied them on this mission slid in as well. The doors shut and they were off, driving through the night and into the wee hours of the morning. Bucky, despite being extremely tired, didn't sleep. Something about sleeping in front of other people made him feel incredibly stressed out. Instead, he watched Ari, who'd fallen asleep against the window, in a non-creepy manner he hoped. He wondered sometimes if being an agent was too much stress for her—she was looking rather paler these days—but she claimed it was exactly the opposite: that being an agent added spice to her life. He couldn't do anything but shrug and take her word for it. For him…being an agent wasn't extra seasoning in his life but merely something he did as a duty. He had specific skills and so he would utilize them in a way that was "good" to try and neutralize all the wrongs he had committed as HYDRA's puppet.

By the time dawn broke they had arrived at the SHIELD headquarters, which was a medium-sized office building. A year ago, when the news had first broken that SHIELD was, and always had been, compromised by HYDRA, it had seemed like nothing could bring the sunken intelligence agency back up from the depths. Nick Fury had worked out of a shabby rented apartment building in an even shabbier part of Washington D.C.—because he was Nick Fury and he never gave up, even if the U.S. government told him to—but all hope for SHIELD seemed lost. The breach within cost the agency its reputation, its actual physical location, and all of its funding. The world was in shockwaves, every newspaper headline shrieking about SHIELD, about HYDRA, about all the secrets and information Natasha had dumped online—many of them about _her_. Of course, during those first couple of manic weeks, Bucky himself had been dazed and despondent, wandering around as the Winter Soldier. It had been Ari who'd found him, treated him, brought him back from the edge, reunited him with Steve Rogers, and who'd eventually saved him. After getting his memories and files back, Bucky had made the decision alongside Ari to join SHIELD.

For a few weeks after they'd joined, they hadn't actually done much of anything—simply because they couldn't. SHIELD had been…well, pathetic. There really was no other word for it, in Bucky's mind. But eventually the U.S. government had started funding them again and Bucky later learned that during those pathetic few weeks, furious negotiations had been going inside Capitol Hill about the fate of SHIELD. It was eventually decided by Congress that SHIELD would remain a branch of the U.S. security, would continue to receive funding, and would continue to engage in diplomatic relations with other nations (to the extent that other nations chose to receive them after the massive scandal, that was)…but only to a certain point. The government wouldn't allow SHIELD to become the massive hub it once was, not anytime soon at least anyway. It would have to remain a small, more privately-run operation, the way it had been for decades after it had been created. To many of the remaining SHIELD agents and new recruits who'd been used to things being expensive, fancy, and on massive-scales, the new downgrades were frustrating and many a new recruit had quit earlier on ("Shows they weren't made of the tough stuff anyway," grumbled Fury. "Bunch of pansies."). But Bucky was personally glad SHIELD had gone down in size. He didn't think he'd have felt comfortable at all working in such a huge intelligence agency with thousands of eyes on him and crowds of people to watch his every move and talk about him. This way, with SHIELD being smaller and more private…it was easier for him to breathe. Because he was still paranoid that people looked at him, talked about him, behind his back. He could see the mistrust in some peoples' eyes and he wondered if it would ever go away or not.

Ari, of course, claimed it was because he refused to change his look. "If you'd just cut your hair," she'd said, "you'd look more like the old Bucky Barnes and less like the Winter Soldier."

"What, you think I'd look better with short hair?" he'd asked.

"Not to _me_," she'd said. "I think you look cool with the longer hair. But the world might breathe a little easier if you cut it short. And, you know, shaved your face all smooth."

But he'd refused. He told himself his reasons for not cutting his hair had everything to do with him trying to be a new person and make his _own _decisions and nothing to do with the fact that Ari liked his hair longer. And shaving everyday was just annoying. As long as he didn't have a beard, he was alright.

They all slid out of the car and strode into the office building, which was situated in a corner lot in the business district. It was officially a "physician clinic center" for the books but Bucky knew the people in the area knew what it was unofficially. The U.S. government was trying to keep SHIELD low-key now but it didn't exactly help when scary-looking folk in all-black outfits strode out of the place day in and day out and nary a physician entered or left the place. They'd had some trouble with reporters and paparazzi trying to get glimpses inside the building—which had the address of 24 Pryde Parkway (or simply "24 Pryde" as they all called it)—but they'd been quickly dealt with and Bucky was sure, a grim smile on his face, that after the dressing down and threats of legal action they all received, they wouldn't be back and neither would their colleagues.

The inside of the building was clear and well-maintained though obviously less fancy and expensive than the Triskelion had been. There was beige carpeting on the floor, beige paint on the walls, navy sofas, and oak furniture. And that was the extent of it. The Triskelion was being rebuilt at breakneck speed but it certainly would not be for SHIELD use anymore. Bucky had no idea what they were going to do with it and he felt a small surge of anger at the predicament SHIELD was in. Even though he personally enjoyed the more private affair it now was, he recognized that their treatment was highly unfair. True, it was shocking that _no one _had caught wind of HYDRA for all these decades, and true, it was a mess of politics and legalities that SHIELD had, inadvertently, helped further HYDRA's causes…but HYDRA had been extremely careful and sneaky and no one had dreamed that SHIELD would be compromised from within so no one had ever even taken a close look at the inner workings of SHIELD. It wasn't exactly peoples' faults for not suspecting that their decades-old intelligence agency which appeared to have done so much good for world security—that it may have _not _been what it was. And whether they had accidentally helped further HYDRA's means, they'd still done lots of good in the world too. They'd still stopped and help curb violence, apprehend fugitives and threats, manage dangerous liaisons between enemy groups, work with nations around the globe to provide a safer and secure world… The way they were being treated now was really far too unfair and shabby. The good of SHIELD deserved better than this. Unfortunately, the world needed a scapegoat—and SHIELD was it. The ordinary citizens clamored for action (never once admitting that had _they _been in their positions, they'd never have seen HYDRA coming either), not even realizing the gravity of what they were demanding. Bucky didn't think the ordinary citizens were aware of how much SHIELD had kept them safe. Simply being here for a year and getting to view a few select old case files (and then just hearing "locker room gossip" about old incidents), he now knew that there were stranger things in the world than he'd ever dreamed—even stranger than a decades-old brainwashed assassin—and that SHIELD was the one to deal with these things.

An agent with short spiky blond hair strode up to meet them. "Director Fury is in his office," he said. "He'd like to brief with all you together and then with you individually, Sergeant Barnes."

Bucky nodded and they headed upstairs to Fury's office, if it could even be called that. It looked like any other office in the building—_lesser_, in fact, because it was utterly devoid of any personal belongings. Bucky had now known Nick Fury for a year and he _still _wasn't sure if the man had a spouse, children, parents, or friends of any sort. He was a mystery. He was also laying low. He was supposed to be "dead" so he didn't go out much anymore (not that he ever had before…) and when he did, he wore outfits that weren't black and sunglasses. Ari had once told Bucky that Nick Fury didn't look like a badass anymore and this disappointed her. Ari seemed to have a slight fixation on badasses, in Bucky's opinion. He suspected it was because she knew that she'd never really _look _badass, no matter how badass she acted, so she focused on those who did. Like himself. Bucky wasn't going to lie—it stroked his ego sometimes when he thought about the fact that Ari thought he was a badass. A man had to have _something_, right?

"Well?" Fury asked shortly the minute they all stepped inside his office and shut the door behind them. He didn't waste time on societal niceties or pleasantries.

Bucky got the point as well. "Mission accomplished."

"Excellent, Sergeant." Fury held out his hand and one of the agents darted forward and handed him the wrapped documents. Bucky followed them with his eyes and wondered again what was inside them.

"Any problems?" Fury asked. His voice made it clear that he expected there were none and probably didn't want to hear about them if there _had _been any.

"Agent Lewinski's dead," Bucky said bluntly. He glanced over at his agents. They kept professional, composed expressions on their faces but he could see the upset and anger flickering in their eyes and in the corners of their suddenly tight mouths. Lewinski had been well liked here, a woman with strong morals and a hearty laugh.

Fury's mouth tightened into a flat line. "Lewinski was a damn good agent," he said, "and we're sorry to see her go. I trust _everything _will be documented within the incident report?" That was about as emotional as Fury ever got.

"It'll be on your desk tomorrow by 0700 hours, sir," said one of the agents, the woman with the short boy cut.

"Good, good," said Fury in a distracted voice, looking down at the bundle. "Well—the rest of you are dismissed. I'll see _you_, Kaplan, tomorrow for the mission we discussed," he said, nodding towards one of the agents, a man with short dark hair and a rather short stature. Kaplan nodded and then he, the other agent, and Ari all left the room. Once the door had shut behind them, Fury turned to Bucky and tersely asked, "So, Sergeant, did we have any _incidents_ on this mission?"

Knowing exactly what he was referring to, Bucky winced internally but clenched his teeth as he said, "No, sir."

Fury took off his sunglasses and gave Bucky a hard stare. "Are you absolutely sure, Sergeant? I like to know what I'm sending out into the field and if I'm send a ticking time b—"

"I said _no_," Bucky snapped. He knew that if any other agent spoke to Fury this way, there'd be repercussions, but Bucky enjoyed what he privately referred to as "half-Cap status" meaning that he enjoyed half of the status and freedom that Captain America was afforded. Captain America wasn't a part of SHIELD and he never would be but he worked alongside them from time to time. He had the freedom to refuse to go on a mission and he couldn't be forced to do otherwise. He was also free to talk back to Fury since, technically, no one dictated him. Captain America didn't have a commanding officer and when he went on a mission, it was automatically assumed that _he _was the commanding officer, no matter how many superior agents were on the mission. It was the kind of luxury that could only be extended to a man who had saved the world three times now, had lived for decades, was an international heroic icon, and embodied all the best of American virtues and ideals. So when it came to Bucky…well, on one hand, he'd committed terrible crimes and couldn't exactly lord it over the others without creating resentment and anger. He wasn't some big-deal hero who could be afforded any sort of special status. And yet, on the other hand, he was without a doubt their most dangerous and qualified agent now—even more so than the legends like Romanoff, Barton, May, and Skulinowski—and everyone also knew, deep down, that he'd been horribly wronged. He hadn't willingly chosen to do any of the terrible things he'd done. So while he reported to Nick Fury and was a part of SHIELD, there seemed to be some slight leeway where he was allowed to speak up and talk back and go a bit rogue every now and then. All under Fury's watchful good eye, of course.

"And," added Bucky as Fury watched him closely, "even if I did…I can handle it."

"Can you, Sergeant?" Fury asked in a slightly sardonic voice. Bucky didn't like the way he felt around Fury, like a rag doll who was laying on the table, cut open with his stuffing piling out. He sometimes felt like Fury had x-ray vision and could see to his core, see all of his secrets and dirty deeds, and unlike Ari, he didn't make Bucky feel comforted when he stared at him. He made him feel unworthy, like he'd made a mistake that he couldn't fix.

_Well…_isn't _that what you did? _a negative part of his mind hissed at him. He ignored it.

"Well, you're free to go then, Sergeant," said Fury. "But know that I'm keeping a close eye on you. If you can handle these episodes, you're fine. But the second it starts to seem like they're getting the better of you, I'm pulling you out of the field. And I'm not singling you out. I'd do this for any agent in the field. Understand?"

"Understood," said Bucky tonelessly.

"Then dismissed, Sergeant," said Fury. "I'll see you soon. Go home and get some rest. I suspect," he added in a distracted mutter, running his hands over the package he'd received, "that things are going to get very messy soon…"

Bucky didn't see how things could possibly get any _messier_—but he nodded once, turned, and left the office. He changed into black sweats in the bathroom and headed out. It was dawn and the building was quiet but he still saw agents here and there. 24 Pryde Parkway never really fully shut down for the night. Ari would have gone home by now so he didn't even bother looking for her. An agent by the door said, "Goodnight—er, good morning, Sarge," while he walked by and it took him a second before he replied, "Good morning," back. Sometimes he still wasn't used to people addressing him pleasantly. When he'd been the Winter Soldier, it had been unimaginable. But even now, as Bucky Barnes, he knew people were intimidated by him and perhaps thought wrongly of him. His longer hair, sullen expression, and cybernetic arm didn't do much to make people less wary of him. So it still wasn't as if he suddenly had thousands of friendly fans and best friends lining up around the block. He didn't really care, though, having become a much more private person than the old Bucky Barnes had been.

He had a motorcycle parked at 24 Pryde and he hopped on, strapping on his helmet and pulling on his black leather gloves and black leather jacket (surprisingly, _Natasha _had bought it for him. "You can't ride a motorcycle without a black leather jacket," she'd explained. "Steve does it and it hurts me inside. I can't let you do the same.") and taking off. The streets were quiet, the early morning pale golden sunrays cutting through a lavender dawn sky. The morning was slightly chilly and misty but he could hear birds chirping and it looked like it was gearing up to a peaceful summer day. It was so quiet and peaceful out that he rode slowly, keeping his engine low, enjoying the ride. Sometimes riding his motorcycle was the only part of his day he really enjoyed. With his face and hands covered, he was just another young man who was on a joyride. Sometimes women giggled at him from street corners and he didn't even feel self-conscious but rather gave them a small smile (which they obviously couldn't see) because he knew they weren't laughing at _him_—they were just giggling at the faceless man on the motorcycle who looked so much like the "bad boy" that women tended to adore.

He arrived at his apartment and parked the motorcycle in his assigned garage. Working for SHIELD didn't exactly pay well anymore but somehow—and Bucky just _knew _Steve was involved—Fury had wrangled a nicer place for him than he really deserved and the bills just got paid on their own. Bucky felt a bit like a freeloader and this annoyed him incredibly, but what else could he do? He couldn't exactly get a regular job just yet. He didn't feel quite comfortable in the world yet. Either way, he rarely bought anything other than groceries and the occasional clothes or book every now and then, so he was sure he wasn't a huge expense for SHIELD. He climbed up the stairs to his apartment and as he did, he passed Kristen, the young woman who lived across the hall from him. She worked as an accountant at a nearby bank. She was heading down the stairs with a basket of laundry and stopped and said, "Oh hey there, Bucky!" smiling.

"Hi," Bucky said quietly. He always felt a bit awkward around Kristen. She was very friendly and open (which was probably the reason she'd figured out his name when no one else in the building even realized he _existed_) and he wasn't exactly sure if she'd figured out who he was or not but she never acted weird around him so he was guessing no. She was taller than Ari, slightly more curvy (though Ari was so slender, this applied to most women who weren't Ari), and had waist-length blonde hair with sun-streaks, hazel eyes, and a very wide grin. Ari was petite, pale, and hade huge blue eyes. Very different looks, really. The only thing the two women had in common was their very long hair, though Ari's hung pin straight and Kristen's waved slightly.

Bucky had no idea why he was mentally comparing them.

"Up early, eh?" she asked. "Couldn't sleep myself."

"Yeah, got…called in to work," he said a bit lamely, not really explaining why his work would require him to be up before dawn or to wear black sweats.

"Right," Kristen said after a pause. "Well, I won't keep you. I'm sure you must be tired. Have a nice day!"

"You too," Bucky said, giving her a small smile and escaping up the stairs to his landing with some relief. He unlocked his door, turned to watch the top of Kristen's blonde head vanish downstairs, and then stepped into his apartment, quadruple-locking it behind him. He was still pretty paranoid that HYDRA would one day come back after him. After all, everyone knew HYDRA wasn't complexly destroyed, not at all. Gavin Hoffman had more or less admitted it to him. Bucky clenched his fists at the thought of Hoffman, his blood pressure rising, and then he leaned against his door and tried to relax, closing his eyes and deep-breathing the way Ari kept telling him to do.

_Don't think_—breath—_about Hoffman._

_ Don't think_—breath—_about how he tortured Ari._

_ Or how_—breath—_he tried to freeze Natasha, Sam, and Steve in cryogenesis. _

_ Or how_—breath—_he was trying to use you again_.

Bucky's cybernetic hand clenched of its own accord. Clearly this breathing exercise wasn't working right now. He couldn't escape his own thoughts. So he ripped off his shirt and threw himself into the shower, first turning it to scalding hot and then to icy cold, hoping one or the other would shock him out of obsessing over Hoffman like a madman. It wasn't healthy. He was dead, gone. He couldn't hurt Bucky—or any of his friends—ever again.

When he was done he threw on a pair of running sweats and then stretched out on his sofa and stared up at the ceiling, his hands folded across his rock-hard stomach. He closed his eyes and sighed. He was aware that he the very caricature of a Pathetic Person right now but he really didn't know what to do with himself now that he was himself again. If he'd grown up in the mid-twentieth century like he was supposed to…he knew what he would have done. He would have returned from war as a decorated hero and would have eventually fallen in love with some girl, whether it be that gal Connie who really liked him—or some other girl. He probably wouldn't have gone back to school…he'd have probably worked at a garage and fixed up cars and motorcycles. He'd had a passion for that, the same way that Steve had had a passion for drawing and art. Bucky hadn't seen any artwork in Steve's new home. It appeared that he'd abandoned his old hobby. And he would have had a couple of kids and life would have been uneventful but it would have been _right_. He would have been in his element. His world. His time.

Things were different. Half the time he wanted to constantly be with Steve and Ari and cling to them to keep the aching loneliness away—and the other half of the time he wanted to shut himself up in his apartment and never interact with anyone. He sometimes went out and did things with Ari and Steve and Sam but everyone had their own lives and they couldn't hang out 24/7. He didn't make many new friends. He still had trouble trusting people and opening up to them. He didn't know what his future held now. Could he go back to school? What kind of job could he get? Was there even a place in this world for _Bucky Barnes_? As for a family one day…

Bucky didn't see women anymore. He remembered seeing them all the time. He'd loved women, loved their soft eyes and sweet-smelling hair and red lips. Loved the way they looked at him like he was something special. But women didn't look at him like that anymore and he was different now, anyhow. Oh, he _noticed _women, now that he wasn't the Winter Soldier, and he could even recognize when he saw an attractive woman. But he was never drawn to them. That _want _he used to feel as the old Bucky Barnes, when he saw beautiful women, that _want _was gone. He didn't feel it anymore. He didn't know if it was because they were strangers to him…or because of some other reason. But if there was anyone who he wouldn't have minded waking up next to every day—

His cell phone let out a shrill ring, startling him so badly he nearly flipped himself off of the sofa. He still wasn't used to carrying this stupid, constantly-beeping device around. As the Winter Soldier, he'd merely had earpieces and radios on the _rare _missions that he worked with other HYDRA strike agents…and quite obviously he'd never had a device like this back in the olden days. Steve had gotten him this cell phone—the newest prototype from Stark Industries (Stark had rang when he learned that Steve was going out to buy an iPhone for Bucky and threatened that under no circumstances was Steve to ever go over to the enemy's side and buy an Apple phone over a Stark phone, otherwise he'd murder both of them in their beds)—to keep in touch but Bucky hated it. He had learned how to navigate it perfectly well, he wasn't an imbecile, but he still didn't like using it. It felt like an unnecessary waste of time. All phones really needed were a keypad and Talk and End buttons. The rest was modern garbage. He grabbed the phone and looked at the screen. An unknown number. He was ignoring it.

He had to admit, however—the phone was useful for using the Internet on the go to look up things that confused him. He was more in touch with the modern world than Steve was, in certain ways, and yet sometimes the smallest of things bewildered him, such as how banksworked these days (not that he had any credit at all).

He was just about to peruse the enormous box of books that Ari had brought him—she'd collected them from all over, every book that she thought he should read and she was forever adding to the pile (she'd even gotten recommendations from Sam, Steve, and Natasha; Natasha had suggested _The Little Engine that Could _and Bucky had resisted the urge to smack the woman. Ari had also _tried _to get Fury to recommend a book but Fury had quelled her with one scornful arched eyebrow and she had hurried from the room with burning pink cheeks)—when his phone rang again. He looked at the display. It was the same number. He debated for a moment whether it was safe to pick up—but he knew that SHIELD monitored all of his calls. If something strange happened, it could easily be traced. He pressed the Answer symbol and held the phone to his ear. "Hello?" he asked in a low voice.

"Bucky!" yelled Steve, sounding breathless. "Bucky—damn—wait just a moment—"

"Steve!" Bucky leaped to his feet, panic overtaking him. "Are you in trouble? What's wrong with your voice?"

"Bucky—I'm so sorry—" came Steve's voice again, oddly breathless and a bit short.

"Steve, talk to me!" Bucky ordered, tension knotting in his shoulders. "_Now_!"

"I'm okay, Bucky—sorry," said Steve, sounding a bit more normal now. "I was borrowing someone's phone to call you—and then someone's dogs got tangled around my legs and I fell over—"

Bucky pressed his cybernetic palm to his eyes. Seriously? Sometimes he wondered how Steve was still alive.

"—and then I had to apologize," said Steve, "but what I was _calling _for was to tell you to come over for dinner."

"Okay," Bucky said slowly, frowning in confusion. "Why the urgency?"

"Just come," Steve said and his voice sounded a bit nervous. "Okay? Oh, and don't dress _terribly_."

"Fine," said Bucky, wondering if he should take offense to the fact that Steve had just basically told him he dressed terribly (even though he kind of did). Steve didn't sound like he was in danger and Bucky had nothing else to do anyway, so dinner at Steve's house it was. He hung up, still feeling a bit confused, because Steve wasn't actually the best of cooks so eating food together wasn't an activity they usually did—but obviously Steve needed Bucky tonight, so Bucky meant to be a good best friend and go. He wasn't in the position to say no. He felt that he had a lot to make up to Steve, even though Steve had insisted time and time again that Bucky had absolutely nothing to make up to him and that he was just glad that Bucky was alive and well. Then again, Steve was just straightforward _good _that way.

Bucky hoped one day he'd be able to be the same—but he had his doubts. Even back in the 1930s, he'd been willing to do the dirty deeds that Steve Rogers would never contemplate doing. Sometimes Bucky wondered if darkness had been forced upon him…or if HYDRA had just nudged the darkness that was already in him and helped it take root and bloom. He remembered Fury's parting words earlier this morning and a shiver ran down his spine despite himself. He suddenly had the feeling that the coming days would allow him to answer his question and he wasn't sure if the answer was going to be something he ever wanted to hear.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Yay, we're really back! Okay, so just a few things. One: I'm a big fan of the slow-burn romance. I'm really not into jumping into insta-love. I think you guys have figured that out about me…but there, I've said it. Make of that what you will! **

**Two: I'm sorry for how long it took to put this update up! Life got a little crazy. But this leads into…**

**Three: Updates on this story may be more infrequent as time goes on **_**simply **_**because school will be starting up again and I'm heading into my toughest and most stressful year. Don't worry, I'd NEVER abandon this story, but try to stay patient with my updates as time goes on, kay? This story is kind of like "my precious" so I want to make sure I do a good job on it. I'd rather take longer to write a really good chapter than quickly write a crappy one, you know? So stick with me! **

**Ooh, and sorry for all the confusion regarding Kaplan! No, he is not any character from Marvel. I made him up and I didn't even realize that there were characters named Kaplan in Marvel! Same with Lewinski. But I **_**did **_**put in a little wink to a different Marvel superhero in the first chapter, if you can find it!**

* * *

Not having any clue what one wore to a random dinner at their best friend's house when commanded to dress "not horribly", Bucky decided on a pair of dark-wash jeans and a black polo with black shoes. He shook his head slightly as he pulled on the clothes. Ari took him shopping sometimes—or, rather, he sat on a bench and stared at the floor while Ari shopped for him—and he let her do this because, frankly, he had no patience or understanding as to what to shop for. But Ari had a strange sense of style when it came to him; she always ended up buying a lot of black. He didn't actually care very much what he wore and black was great for camouflaging during a mission, but it did make him look more menacing during the daytime. However, Ari thought he looked good in black and he wasn't going to argue with her, not when he had no sense of what colors looked good on who and why. That wasn't his area. So he let her buy his clothes and he wore black quite often and he accepted this as the way things were going to be.

At the last minute, he hesitated and then pulled on a black jacket and navy blue gloves. He still felt awkward going out in public while displaying his cybernetic arm. His appearance in public was a strange thing indeed; he knew he got strange looks when he _did _display his cybernetic arm. People weren't used to seeing a man with a shiny silver metal arm. But no one actually knew who the Winter Soldier had been (mostly only intelligence communities had been aware of him, _if _even them) and even if they had known who the Winter Soldier was, they wouldn't have known he had a metal arm. So no one in public ever made the connection between him and the masked man who had wreaked havoc upon Washington D.C. over a year ago. No one also ever recognized him as Bucky Barnes. This was probably due to the fact that he wore a baseball cap that shadowed his face everywhere he went and also because people seemed slightly afraid to look directly at his face. He didn't always look extremely welcoming. Besides, even if someone _did _look at him and think, _Wow, he sure looks like that Bucky Barnes did_—which he was sure at least one person probably had thought, over the course of one year—it's not like anyone would _actually _think he was Bucky Barnes. They would just think he resembled him very closely. (Bucky knew one day people would eventually catch on and realize he was the real Bucky Barnes but he was hoping it would take a really long time for this to happen.) And after people stared at his metal arm for a moment, they usually shrugged and moved on. Prosthetics and metal limbs weren't as strange these days; plenty of humans had metal legs and arms and while Bucky's was obviously a hundred times more advanced and realistic-looking, most people in public just chalked it up to the fact that this poor man who'd lost a limb must have paid a lot of money to get such a realistic-looking prosthetic in return.

And yet, despite all these factors that let him know that showing his arm wasn't a big deal, he chose not to, most of the time. A tiny part of it was the fact that he didn't want to advertise to anyone that he was around—after all, HYDRA would probably still be looking for him—but mostly it was because he just didn't like people noticing him. An aftereffect of being the Winter Soldier, who'd always worked on ghost status. He was used to being in the shadows. Being out in direct sunlight still made him uncomfortable sometimes.

His phone rang again. He looked at the screen. This time it was Steve's actual number. "Hello?" he answered.

"Change of plans," said Steve, sounding a bit hurried. "Meet me for dinner at the extra apartment."

Bucky blinked and then frowned. "What? _Why_? Steve, are you in some sort of trouble? Because if you are, you need to tell me."

"No, no," said Steve. "Well—I mean—just meet me there, okay? Come at…come at seven." Then he hung up without even saying goodbye, which wasn't like Steve at all. Steve was very big on manners.

Now Bucky was even more bewildered. The apartment in question was an empty apartment with the barest of furnishings and appliances that made it look like a human lived there and every single SHIELD agent left had a key to it. It was for use in case of emergency—in case someone needed to crash somewhere under-the-radar for a little while or if they were undercover and needed to take someone "home" but didn't want to take them to their real home. Why on earth would _Steve _be using that apartment? He kept insisting he wasn't in any huge trouble—but the usage of the apartment indicated otherwise.

Bucky realized he still had the whole day before he had to go to dinner so he took off his clothes and put his sweats back on. A wave of fatigue hit him and he decided to take a light nap. However, his light nap turned into a _deep _nap, and he was awoken by someone knocking at his apartment door. His eyes snapped open and he immediately leaped to his feet, shoulders tense and eyes darting around. "Soldier!" came Ari's muffled voice through the door. "You home?" The golden light filtering through the window was coming in through the wrong direction; he'd slept till very late afternoon, bordering on evening. Who knew he'd been that tired?

His shoulders slumped as the tension drained out of him. His Winter Soldier reflexes—those were never going away, he knew that. He couldn't help them. But this was Ari; she wasn't the enemy. He got up, yawned, froze and quickly brushed his teeth and splashed water on his face (he didn't want to be unhygienic around a lady), called, "Wait, I'm coming!" and then yanked the door open.

Immediately, a thick bouquet of flowers smacked him in the face, making him jump back and sneeze as all the pollen flew up his nose. "What the—?"

Ari marched into the apartment and shut the door, setting the huge bouquet on the counter near her and spinning on her heel to look at him. "You're not dressed yet."

"I—what?" he asked, confused. Then he noticed what Ari was wearing—a dark purple dress with black tights and black flats. Her hair was swept up into a neat pony and she was wearing simple makeup. A silver pendant with a crystal hanging from it glittered in between her delicate collarbones and he felt disoriented for a small second. Then he blinked and frowned. "Are you coming to dinner too?"

She rolled her eyes. "Don't sound so disappointed." But she was smiling. Nothing ever seemed to faze Ari or make her upset. Sometimes Bucky questioned her sanity. Just sometimes.

"No, I'm just—confused," he said. "I don't know what's going on. Steve just called me and asked me to dress nicely and come to dinner but I don't know why…"

Ari shrugged. "Neither do I, actually. He called me and told me the same thing. He also told me to bring flowers," she added, sounding puzzled. "He wouldn't tell me why when I asked. But he sounded a bit panicked, so I thought, _Why not_? And then I decided to come around here to see how you were doing—and here I find you, _not _dressed and ready at all!"

Bucky rolled his eyes. "I'm a guy," he said. "It'll take me five minutes to throw on my clothes. Less, actually."

Ari waved him off. "Go get ready, Soldier. I'll wait."

He knew she wouldn't listen to any argument—and besides, it was already six p.m. When had it gotten that late? He must have been even more tired than he'd thought (which wasn't surprising, considering he'd been awake for the past 48 hours). So he stumped away and decided to take another shower, taking longer this time to be perfectly squeaky-clean and presentable. He brushed his hair back and decided to shave. He didn't shave often because it was a tiresome chore (so he usually had a face full of stubble) but he shaved often enough that he didn't have full on beard. That would have annoyed him even more than shaving every single day. But Steve wanted him to look presentable so he would shave today, not knowing what was going to happen. He examined his face in the mirror for a moment. He didn't look as gaunt or haunted as he had a year ago, when he'd examined his reflection in Ari's mirror. He had gained back all his muscle as well, no longer as rangy as he'd been during his weeks of illness and mental instability. But his face was still pale and he had dark shadows under his eyes… It was amazing, actually, that he'd gotten any sleep at all today, considering what had been happening to him lately…

He tried smiling at himself. He looked strange. He frowned. Now he looked normal. He settled for a small, hesitant smile which looked more natural on his face. Bucky Barnes' old cocky smirk didn't look right on his face anymore, in his opinion, but it didn't matter. He didn't smirk as much these days as he used to (though it did show up every now and then; usually when Sam was around, wisecracking, and Bucky managed to throw in a couple of jabs at him). He blinked and then turned away, throwing on his clothes. Shrugging on his leather jacket, he examined his reflection and sighed. He would always look…dangerous. There was no helping it. Was there something _about _him that naturally radiated darkness? Remembering at the last minute, he splashed on some random Stark cologne he'd gotten as a gift in a Tony Stark gift basket (Stark was a source of simultaneous annoyance, vague amusement, and tension in Bucky's life) and left.

Ari was sitting on his couch, her flats neatly on the floor beside her, watching the news with a worried expression. He came up behind the couch and leaned over it slightly, resting his arms on the back of the couch, next to her. His eyes focused on the TV that he didn't use as much as he should have (he preferred reading to watching movies). "What's up?"

"The usual: war, violence, genocide," she said but she looked unhappy. Ari took these matters to heart in ways most jaded people didn't. In ways that _Bucky _didn't. To him, violence and war were an unfortunate but unavoidable aspect of life and he wasn't much affected by it anymore. Just another way he was different from Ari. She cocked her head and slowly said, "There's been reports of…" Her voice trailed off as she stared blankly at the TV, which was now singing the catchy tune for Luna Carpets. "Never mind." She shook her head.

As she spoke, Bucky noticed the scars shining on her inner forearms. The redness had long faded by now and the words now had a silvery-white gleam to them. Sometimes, in certain lighting, they weren't noticeable and at other times—such as now—they were very prominent. Ari had never made an attempt to hide them. THE WINTER SOLDIER SALUTES YOU. Carved into both of her inner arms. Bucky still avoided looking at them and even though he'd apologized profusely for them a year ago, he found it hard to bring them up now. He still felt like he had tainted her somehow, ruined a part of her. Ari never seemed to care…but then, he knew Ari was good at hiding feelings that she thought might trigger him. No one else except for Steve, Sam, and Natasha knew the story behind the scars. He knew that some of the agents remaining at SHIELD thought _he'd _carved the words into Ari and regarded him with a mixture of suspicion, disgust, and fear whenever they glanced at the words and then flicked their eyes to him. He always clenched his teeth and pretended not to notice because really, what did it matter what other people thought?

"Hello, Soldier." Ari smacked him on the back of his head and he blinked, shaking himself from his thoughts. "Have you been listening to a word I said? Let's go. Steve said to come a little early."

Bucky wanted to go on his motorcycle but Ari flat out refused. "Yeah, I don't think so," she said. She pointed to her sleek high pony. "My hair will get ruined. Plus, how am I supposed to sit behind you with _this _in my arms?"

Bucky looked at the bouquet. It _was_ rather abnormally large—more of a flower bush than a flower bouquet, really. "Why did you get the biggest one, then?" he asked.

Ari sheepishly grinned. "Steve said to get a nice one. So I got the most dramatic one there was."

In the end, Ari drove them in her car, which she'd parked out in the parking lot right next to his apartment complex. In selling her house a few months ago, she'd also suddenly decided to sell her old Toyota Camry and buy a new BMW. Bucky had been a bit alarmed because sudden extravagant purchases were not in Ari's nature but she'd laughed off his worries and had said, "Relax, Soldier, I'm not going to squander all my money now or something. I just have a lot saved up and why not? I'm a super-cool SHIELD agent now, right? I need a cool car." And she'd winked at him. He remembered that wink sometimes at the strangest moments, like right when he was about to sleep.

She parked outside the apartment complex that held the SHIELD apartment and they silently gazed up at the apartment (which faced the street). It was on the fourth floor, far left side. Plain white curtains were drawn but Bucky could see lights glowing through the thin hangings. Someone was clearly inside. Surreptitiously touching the dagger and gun he'd slipped into the inside of his jacket, he got out of the car and led the way, leaving Ari to lug the stupid bouquet. He would have offered to help but a tiny part of him felt Ari deserved it for buying the worst bouquet on the planet of earth. He heard her sneeze several times in succession and smiled to himself. Next time she'd bring a single rose.

He waited for Ari to catch up as she teetered up the stairs, trying to see around the flowers and stems and leaves, and eventually, losing patience, he grabbed her arm and hurried her up the steps.

"Thanks," she said breathlessly. Then she sneezed again. It appeared she was allergic to pollen, just like him. Already his eyes felt a bit watery and he blinked away the moisture, rubbing his eyes for a moment. They approached the door and he warily knocked once, twice, thrice with loud and precise movements. Then he pivoted back a step, gently touching the weapons, ready to attack if he needed to. He saw Ari eyeing his weapons but she didn't say anything. She still didn't approve of carrying an arsenal of weapons out and about in public ("We're not just SHIELD agents, we're civilians too, Soldier.") but even she carried a dagger with her wherever she went now. Glancing at her tiny clutch and slim dress, he couldn't fathom where she'd put it now. Perhaps she'd left it at home.

The door swung open and the first thing Bucky saw was Steve—but a Steve who looked just a bit sweaty and anxious. He was also wearing formal clothing, a neat pressed button down with black slacks. "Hi, guys," he said loudly, cheerfully. Bucky looked carefully at his best friend. Steve's blue eyes looked a wee bit panicked.

"Hi, Steve," Ari said slowly. She stepped across the threshold and thrust the bouquet at him. "This is…yeah."

Steve goggled at the enormous bouquet for a second before grabbing it and kissing Ari on the cheek. "Thank you. You're amazing. This is overkill, you didn't have to buy one this fancy."

Ari blushed and Bucky felt a twinge of annoyance. What was there to blush over? Surely Ari couldn't _still _be star struck in Steve's presence? He pushed into the apartment, looking around—and then froze as he saw a redheaded woman setting down dishes onto the table in the small kitchen. She froze too and they both warily stared at each other for a moment. Who _was _she? She was short, shorter than Ari (who was 5'5") and very curvy with perfectly curled long red hair and bright green eyes and freckles. Cute…and a total stranger.

And then suddenly her red lip-sticked mouth opened into a wide grin and a strange noise erupted out of her. Far too late, Bucky realized she was _squealing _with happiness and rushing at him. Before he could side step her, she'd wrapped her arms around him and given him a bone-crushing hug (which was saying something, considering he was much bigger than her and normal humans usually felt so much weaker to him). He stiffened at her touch, frantically asking Steve with his eyes who the _hell _this woman was and Steve looked torn between wanting to laugh and wanting to die. Ari, on her part, stood frozen, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly open. She was just as lost as Bucky was.

"Welcome!" said the woman, finally releasing him and stepping back, smoothing down her navy and white polka-dotted dress. She was wearing a very 1950's style dress that cinched in at her waist and then flared out dramatically, giving her an hourglass effect, with shiny patent black pumps. "I'm so happy to meet Steve's friends!"

"Right," said Bucky in a slight daze. "Uh…right. I'm…Steve's friend."

"Hi, I'm Ari, nice to meet you," said Ari, having retained her wits about her far more than Bucky had. She reached out to shake the woman's hand but the woman grabbed her arm and yanked _her _in for a hug as well. Bucky bit his lip to keep from smirking as he watched Ari tentatively hug the woman back, clearly unsure as to what was really going on.

The woman released Ari and said, "I'm Jessica! So you and—" She turned a questioning gaze on Bucky.

"Ben," he said automatically, not wishing to give this woman his real name. She had a slightly manic gleam in her eyes that he didn't trust—not for any sinister reasons but more for human reasons. She seemed…odd.

"So you and Ben are a couple then?" she asked, beaming.

They both stood there blinking for a moment and then Ari laughed. "N—"

"_No _need to be shy, Ari," Steve suddenly cut in, a strained smile on his face. "I know you wanted to keep it a secret from our friends but Jessica here doesn't know you two! It's alright to admit that you and…_Ben _are dating."

Ari's mouth fell open and for a moment she looked as though words were failing her—but she, as well as Bucky, was sharp enough to see the real pleading in Steve's eyes so she finally let out a high-pitched extremely fake laugh and said, "Oh, you're right, I forgot I didn't have to hide it here! Ben and I are…yes, we're dating." She smiled at Jessica.

"Wonderful!" exclaimed Jessica loudly. Bucky winced. Why was she practically shouting? Everyone was standing within feet of each other. "Come, come, sit! I've set the table! I can't wait to find out more about you two! Steve's _friends_! I have to say, I didn't think Captain America was so sociable—"

Bucky swiveled to stare at Steve while Jessica chattered away and Steve shrugged, looking helpless.

"Oh, Steve!" she shrieked, just noticing the bouquet in Steve's arms. "For me? You shouldn't have!"

_He didn't_, Bucky thought wryly as Jessica grabbed the bouquet and ushered them all over to the table.

They sat down to eat and thus began possibly the worst dinner of Bucky's life. He didn't know who this Jessica woman was, how she'd met Steve, or why on earth she'd somehow ended up having _dinner _with him, but she was the most annoying person he had ever met in his life. Barring some obnoxious HYDRA strike agents like that smug Rumlow, perhaps. She talked incessantly, blathering on and on and on about inane topics until Bucky wanted to take a serving fork and either stab _her _in the throat—or stab _himself _in the throat to put an end to his misery. She kept looking flirtatiously at Steve and trying to coyly banter with him and Steve would give weak, half-hearted responses and Jessica clearly did not get the message. She name dropped "Captain America" so many times that even Ari started to blush out of embarrassment for the woman. Had Steve somehow wandered into a superhero convention to pick up a crazed fangirl as a date? But no, even fangirls couldn't possibly be _this _obnoxious.

To make matters even worse, she kept inquiring into the intimate details of Bucky's and Ari's lives. She had no filter and asked the most outrageous questions, punctuating them with tipsy _hee hee hee_ giggles that made Bucky want to strangle her. She would give Bucky and Ari sly looks and ask nosy questions about their "dating life" until Ari and Bucky both looked uncomfortably red in the face and Steve looked as though he wanted to sink through the floor. Throughout the whole dinner, whenever Jessica had her back turned, Bucky gave Steve death glares, letting him know that there would be repercussions for subjecting him and Ari through this most unique and extreme form of social torture.

To add insult to injury, the food was bland and tasteless.

Finally, two hours after the nightmare began, Jessica made her exit. Even _that _took forever, with her tipsy giggling and hugging and attempts to exchange numbers (both Ari and Bucky gave her fake numbers) and when she left, Steve left with her, presumably to walk her to her car. Steve was incapable of letting women walk places alone when night fell. The door shut behind him and Bucky and Ari sat in silence for a minute before he heard a gasping sound and turned to see Ari bent over, leaning against the back of a tan suede sofa, laughing so hard she couldn't breathe. Bucky watched her laugh. She'd done this before once, burst out laughing when he'd expected a totally reaction.

'That," he said finally, "was not funny."

"It kind of was, though!" she said, her shoulders shaking, wiping her eyes. They came smeared away with black and she groaned. "Oh man, I didn't wear waterproof! I probably look"—she started giggling—"like a raccoon!"

Her bright blue eyes had black makeup smudged around them. "You kind of do," he said truthfully. She snorted and started laughing again. He shook his head, smiling slightly, and leaned against the wall, folding his arms. "Okay, seriously though," he said. "What the hell just happened? Why would Steve ever—" Before he could finish his question, the door opened and Steve walked in, slamming it shut behind him. He looked exhausted.

"Explain," said Bucky.

Steve groaned. "That was…a huge mistake."

"Where did you meet her?" asked Ari, grinning widely.

"I just…" Steve ran his hands through his hair. "I accidentally hit her in the face, okay? I opened a store door too quickly and hit her in the face. And then _she _suggested I take her out to coffee to make up for it and I didn't know how to say no, so I went. Didn't seem like such a harmful thing. But then she recognized who I was and got really intense and loud and basically…basically somehow convinced me to invite her over to cook dinner for me. I didn't know how to say no. I didn't want to be rude." Steve groaned. "But I didn't want her to know the location of my real house so I invited her over here."

"Did she get your number?" Ari asked, looking fascinated.

"No," said Steve, looking relieved.

"Then she doesn't know how to contact you or find you," said Ari, starting to laugh. "I'm sorry, this is so mean of me—but no one is going to believe she had a 'date' with Captain America, you know? She'll come back to this apartment and it'll be empty and abandoned. It'll be like a bad dream."

"I feel kind of bad," said Steve slowly, "but not bad enough to ever contact her again."

"Why did you drag _us_ into this?" Bucky demanded. "I thought she'd never shut up. Some of the stuff she asked…"

"Yeah, she was tactless," said Steve, wincing. "Honestly? I didn't want to be alone with her. So I panicked and told her I'd invite a couple I knew over as a double date or whatever and you were the first two people I thought of."

Ari looked down at her nails suddenly, avoiding Bucky's gaze, and Bucky shifted, feeling a little awkward. Was it telling, that Steve had thought of him and Ari when thinking of couples? What did that say? Sometimes thinking about these things gave Bucky a massive headache so he decided to not focus on it for the time being and instead cuffed Steve on the upper arm, threatening to kill him if he ever put him in a situation like that ever again. He was mostly joking but a little serious as well. Human interaction already made him feel tense as it was…what he had endured tonight had been extremely nerve-wracking. And annoying.

Ari looked at her phone and suddenly exclaimed, "Crap! Is it really that late?"

"It's only ten," said Bucky, giving her a strange look.

"I know, but I had…things to do," she murmured distractedly, tapping at her phone. "Plus…I have to wake up early…"

"Work?" Bucky asked, his tone getting slightly colder. He saw Ari's shoulders tense at his tone but she didn't look up at him.

"Yes," she said curtly, still tapping at her screen. "Work."

Ari's other work was a slight source of tension between them. When not doing work for SHIELD, she had gotten a job working very strange hours at a free clinic in a dangerous and impoverished area of Washington D.C. Not only was it the only place that accepted Ari's very strange schedule, it was something that called to her—helping people who couldn't help themselves. Bucky thought the area was too dangerous for her to regularly work in and she didn't understand his objection, expressing frustration at _his _frustration. "I'm a SHIELD agent," she would say. "I do way more dangerous work for SHIELD. How is this worse?" and Bucky would have no answer. He couldn't very well tell Ari that he almost regularly had nightmares of her dying now and that they made him very edgy and anxious. That would just make _her _anxious and she would start acting all nurse-ish with him and he didn't want that.

But since he had no real explanation for why her work for the free clinic bothered him, it remained a small issue between them. Small because they'd never really argued over it; it was just something they both somehow _knew _they had slight tension over.

Ari told him that she needed to make a quick call so she said goodbye to Steve, hugged him, and then walked out. Bucky said goodbye to Steve and was about to follow Ari when Steve suddenly grabbed his arm. "Listen," said Steve in a serious voice. "Be careful, okay?"

"I always am," said Bucky, a little confused.

"I know," said Steve. "But…we're hearing things."

Remembering a strange comment Ari had made earlier, Bucky slowly asked, "What things?"

Steve hesitated. "Just—just agents in other countries going rogue…behaving in strange ways…vanishing…dying in strange ways… I don't know. None of us are sure of what's going on. But I wanted to warn you."

Bucky looked into Steve's eyes. He had no idea what was going on but Steve was clearly afraid that Bucky would relapse or become the Winter Soldier again. Bucky could have felt irritated at Steve assuming the worst of him—but he didn't because he knew Steve _wasn't _assuming the worst of him. Steve was dealing with his own emotional issues, and a lot of them involved having separation issues and anxiety over Bucky. Bucky knew he hurt a part of Steve every time he walked out his door and left him behind, no matter how temporary the separation was. He had really messed up his best friend without even meaning to. Steve had lost him so many times. Bucky knew losing him again might just kill Steve.

Which was why he quietly said, "I'll be extra careful."

"Good," said Steve, looking relieved. He let go of Bucky's arm and clapped him on the back. "Alright, you should get going. Don't want to keep Ari waiting."

Bucky knew Ari would never get impatient with him for spending time with Steve—in fact, she was thrilled every time he hung out with Steve—but he nodded and left anyway. It wasn't just Steve who hurt every time Bucky left. Every time Bucky walked away from Steve, he felt a strange pang. And then he had to remind himself, every time, _It's not for good. I can see him whenever I want now. I'm not leaving for forever._

It was still hard, though.

He headed down to where Ari was waiting in her car. He buckled his seat belt (something Ari had insisted on, no matter how many times he told her that he didn't need one) and she took off. They were silent but it didn't matter, with Ari. Their silence was comfortable. Neither of them felt the need to clutter it up with meaningless words and he appreciated that. Some people didn't understand that about him, babbling in their anxious attempts to set him (and themselves) at ease, but Ari understood that he handled comfortable silence better than nonstop talking. She reached over and turned on her iPod, which was hooked up to her car, playing yet another song which Bucky had never heard. She was trying to help him catch up but catching up on decades of music was easier said than done.

_"In a few weeks I will get time,_

_ To realize it's right before my eyes,_

_ And I can take it if it's what I want to do._

_ I am leaving, this is starting to feel like,_

_ It's right before my eyes,_

_ And I can taste it, it's my sweet beginning."_

Bucky closed his eyes and focused on the lyrics. He always did this every time Ari turned on music. Somehow…somehow the songs she put on always seemed to connect to what he was feeling at the moment. Either she had some sort of magical abilities she wasn't telling him about—or he was learning to connect with music of this generation better than he thought. Just like the song said, he had time and he could do with it whatever he wanted to. True, he worked for SHIELD, using basically the same skills he had as the Winter Soldier—albeit on very different types of targets now—but he had the option to suddenly quit and walk away if he wanted to. So yeah, in a sense, it was a sweet beginning. The knowledge that he could just up and quit—just run away if he wanted without people hunting him down to kill him (though he was sure Steve would still hunt him down)—thrilled him inside, fed him like an addiction. Sometimes he still went out intending to do one thing and randomly changed his mind and did something else, just for the satisfaction of making up his own mind and not being punished for not following anyone's orders.

The ride home felt much shorter than the ride there and they had soon pulled up to Bucky's apartment complex. Ari said goodbye to him, patting the back of his hand for a moment, and then he was watching her car pull out of the parking lot and vanish down the road. He headed up to his apartment, hoping he didn't run into Kristen. She seemed to hold odd hours as well and had run into Bucky several times during the past year, every conversation extremely awkward for him.

Thankfully he didn't run into her this time and was able to get into his apartment un-intercepted. He locked all of his locks and then leaned against his door for a moment, taking in his silent and dark apartment. He realized he was starving because he'd barely eaten any of Jessica's terrible dinner so he changed into a pair of sleep shorts, choosing not to wear a shirt—his apartment was one of the only places he could have his cybernetic arm out in open without feeling uncomfortable—and fried up some eggs and toasted some pieces of white bread. He was too exhausted to do anything more strenuous than that. In fact, he was feeling so lazy that he ate straight out of the pan, leaning back on his couch and putting in one of the discs from Ari's _Game of Thrones _season 3 DVD set. He didn't watch much TV but he'd spent this whole year finishing up the book series that he'd started back when he barely knew Ari and he'd just recently started watching the whole show—and he admitted, it was addicting. Ari had watched a few episodes with him but when he got to season three, she'd suddenly stopped watching with him, a mournful look coming onto her face whenever he mentioned the Starks of Winterfell. He had a feeling it probably had something to do with the Red Wedding, which he knew was coming because he'd heard a spoiler somewhere. (Speaking of the Starks of Winterfell…Tony Stark had had a small heyday when he'd realized the Winter Soldier was a fan of _Game of Thrones_. He'd called Bucky and had slyly said, "So, does that mean I have the right to say…_winter is coming_?" He'd still been laughing when Bucky had metaphorically slammed the phone down by viciously jabbing the End Call button, scowling. Ari had laughed for days when he told her the story and he had regretted telling her ever since.)

Two episodes later, he shut the DVD player and TV off, leaving his dishes by the sink and heading to his bedroom. His heartbeat picked up speed despite himself and he balled his fists. He lowered himself onto his bed and took a deep breath. _I'm going to sleep tonight_, he commanded himself. _Sleep the whole night through. Nothing will happen to me. _True, he'd slept the whole day today—but he'd still been up for 48 hours and he could still feel exhaustion creeping up on him again. _I'll be fine. Nothing will happen. _He lay down and closed his eyes, trying to breathe normally and relax himself. He'd never fall asleep if he was this tense. _Relax. It's just a normal night. Close your eyes—sleep—and wake up. Easy._

He should have known by now that nothing was ever easy for him. He fell asleep readily enough, true, but he woke up a mere hour later, drenched in sweat and trembling and gasping, salty tears glazing his cheeks as terrified sounds burst through his tightly clenched teeth. High keening noises and strangled, hoarse cries. And then he stayed up all night, unable to sleep, too terrified to try again, remembering all the blood and bodies of the people he cared about piled up in his nightmare. The images spun in a sickening cyclone in his mind and he covered his face with his hands, sitting as still as a statue until the sun began to climb in the sky again. Exhaustion weighed on him but sleep didn't come. He could only sit and breathe, trying not to let the terror and tiredness take over him. The same as he had done almost every other night for the past few months.


	3. Chapter 3

The nightmares had started a few months ago. He had known that recovery wasn't going to be an easy process—but these nightmares exceeded what constituted as normal nightmares and ventured into true psychotic territory. He hadn't told Ari because she would worry herself to death and, not actually having any access or right to administer any actual medicine not prescribed by any doctors (who he refused to go to; he mistrusted people in white lab coats), there was nothing she could do to help him anyway. He didn't want to see her look at him with a pinched expression of worry, so he kept it to himself. He was tough; he knew he could handle them.

Still…the nightmares were paralyzing. Almost every night, he dreamed about bodies and blood and death. Sometimes it was him doing the killing and sometimes he just stumbled upon the dead bodies, but they were all people he knew or _had _known…and all killed in the most gruesome way. Steve, vacant expression on his face, his entire body cut open and every organ pulled out, scattered all around him. Ari, hanging from the ceiling by flaps her skin, having almost been flayed alive, bright blue eyes dull and light-less. His mother, disassembled into numerous body parts and sewn back together like a misshapen monster, resembling a Picasso painting. And blood—so much blood. He was always slipping in blood…dried rust-colored blood, fresh scarlet blood splattered around rooms and walls, congealed blackish blood, thick, smeared into people's wounds and around their slashed grinning smiles. He could taste the blood, smell the flood, hear it dripping down the walls. And his victims. Always his victims featured in the nightmares, either laying dead on the floor or brushing their fingers past his face, his hair, whispering, pressing leering mouths onto his trembling, hot neck until he shot awake, either screaming or whimpering—but _always _gasping and crying.

And the nightmares weren't all. Then came the blackouts, the shaking, the ghostly figures that floated in front of his vision like dancing puppets with ghastly smiles and empty eye sockets. The day terrors came when he was awake and didn't happen as frequently as the nightmares. His vision left him, his ears rang, furious pain in his head and body pounded through him, and he felt like someone was trying to rip him apart. And then everything would return to normal, as if nothing had happened. They had happened three times in the past year. One had happened during a previous mission, and a lower-ranking agent had reported the incident to Fury, who didn't take light of the situation. But Bucky assured him, in a hard voice, that he could manage himself. And he could. He'd been through so much worse than this. This too—like everything else—would pass.

He tried to close his eyes and rest, leaning against his headboard, arms crossed, until four a.m. That was when he gave up the pretense that sleep would come and he got up to go running. Steve went running every morning when he wasn't out of town a mission (which was quite often, in fact, because Steve didn't actually go on too many missions) and he had invited Bucky to join him. Bucky usually did. Some days he ran alone but most days he ran with Steve—which is what he did today. What he liked was that Steve, like Ari, didn't feel the need to fill the air with incessant chatter. He pulled on a working out t-shirt and hoodie and shorts and then left, taking his motorcycle to meet Steve at the Washington Monument, which was usually where Steve did laps.

Steve was already running when he arrived. Sometimes Bucky wondered why exactly he and Steve even bothered to run or work out; they were already so much stronger than the average human. Did they really need to be _stronger_? But Bucky soon realized that working out was less about getting stronger and more about mental focus. It allowed both of them an outlet for their frustration and boredom, to simply run and run and run, to focus on their breathing and work towards an achievable goal. Bucky had once tried to convince Ari to go running—he thought that she could do with building up some muscle—and she'd been horrified. "No thank you!" she'd said. "I already wake up at four a.m. to get to work at the clinic! I'm not going to go _running _on my days off!" And that was the end of the matter. He knew she went to the gym weekly but nothing she did ever really seemed to make her muscular. It seemed being slender was in her genes. Either that or she had a spectacular metabolism, considering she actually ate an alarming amount of food.

He began running and soon caught up to Steve. "Hey," said Steve.

"Hey," said Bucky.

And that was all they said for the remainder of the run. Bucky kept his gaze straight ahead as he ran but he couldn't help but perform the automatic sweep he did whenever he went anywhere—checking for any threats or danger. He didn't think this suspicious part of his nature would ever go away. Looking at Steve next to him, slightly taller than him and keeping an even, steady pace with him, Bucky couldn't help but let out the smallest chuckle.

"What's so funny?" Steve asked.

"Nothing," said Bucky. After a moment— "I was just remembering how small you used to be. And now…" He waved an arm carelessly in Steve's general direction, referring to his Hercules-esq physique.

He couldn't see Steve rolling his eyes but he could _sense _it. "You know, I'm not the only guy in the world who grew up and got fit," said Steve, a hint of a smile in his voice.

"Yeah, but you are the only guy who grew up and became Captain America," said Bucky dryly.

"Not true," said Steve. "They had a lot of men put on my suit after I was gone."

"Those wimps?" Bucky scoffed. They rounded the corner and kept going. Had anyone been observing them, their jaw may have dropped because the men had done around twenty laps at this point without even realizing how much they were running. "They weren't the _real _Captain America."

"What's this?" Steve asked in mock-shock. "Is Bucky Barnes actually a Captain America fanboy?" He laughed.

"What, like the girl you invited to dinner last night?" Bucky asked slyly. Steve immediately stopped laughing and Bucky smirked. Regardless of the fact that he now looked like a male model and was a superhero, Steve was just as clueless with women. Trust him to bring home the world's most obnoxious woman by _accident_, simply because he was too polite to fend her off. Bucky sometimes didn't understand why Steve was so hopeless with women. He was handsome, he was heroic, and he was—despite what the clichés about men like Steve said—he was artistic and intelligent. He loved reading and painting and sketching and he was a gentleman, to boot. He was an all around catch. Bucky supposed the only thing against him was the fact that he was simply too nice. Some women—a lot of women, actually—preferred the "bad boy" exterior (with a heart of gold on the inside, of course).

That was more Bucky Barnes…these days anyway.

"Let's never talk about her again," Steve groaned. "I already told you: I panicked."

"I don't understand," Bucky said after a pause. "What about…Agent 13?" He saw Steve stiffen out of the corner of his eye and sighed. "Steve. You can't blame her for forever for not telling you right away. And it's not _her _fault who her grandmother is. I realize it's kind of weird—but she seems like a great woman." He was talking about Agent 13, Sharon Carter, also known as Agent Peggy Carter's granddaughter. Agent 13 had initially been assigned to live in Steve's old apartment building undercover, pretending to be a nurse, to keep a watchful eye on Steve and make sure he wasn't encountering any major issues adjusting to the modern world. And it seemed to Bucky that Steve had initially been interested in her, though he'd never really admitted it to anyone; but then, six months ago, he'd figured out that Sharon was Peggy's granddaughter. Sharon hadn't exactly been _hiding _it…but she hadn't been rushing to tell Steve either, considering the fact that she knew that Captain America had been sweet on her grandmother—and she herself was interested in Steve. Bucky could understand why she didn't bring it up earlier; it would have immediately dampened their budding relationship and why would anyone do that? Why would anyone purposefully ruin their chances with someone they were interested in? But Steve had immediately backed away and kept a cool distance from her for a few months now. Bucky knew a part of it was the fact that Sharon had kept the secret from him—but a part of it was also that Steve felt strange about having slight feelings for the granddaughter of the woman he'd loved. It sounded like some sort of twisted Greek mythology tale, in some ways.

"She _likes _you," he pressed. "You should give her another chance. It's not really fair to ignore her like this."

"I'm not _ignoring _her," said Steve, sounding stung. He was too much of a gentleman to ignore a woman completely—but Bucky knew he'd been keeping his distance from Sharon more than was polite.

"Yes, you are," he argued. They passed a teenage boy who was standing on the grass in running shorts and a running tank top, staring at them with an open mouth and slightly dazed eyes. They didn't notice him, didn't realize that the boy had somehow been up at the crack of dawn and had seen them run laps around the Washington Monument more times than was humanly possible in the amount of time they'd been running.

"Why are you even pressing this?" Steve shot at him. "Since when do you care about my love life? I've never had one, remember? You're the one who's always had girls hanging off of him. Focus on your own love life."

"What love life?" Bucky muttered. "What girls?" Sometimes he noticed girls giving him interested looks but he also saw a lot of them giving him nervous and sometimes frightened looks. The old Bucky Barnes had _never _frightened women. Charmed them, wooed them, danced with them and spun them in circles—yes. Scared them? Never.

"Well, there's always Ari," Steve said slyly.

Bucky immediately sped up and passed Steve, determined to ignore what Steve had said. "Race you!" he called over his shoulder, throwing himself into hyper-speed. "Twenty bucks says I make it to the Lincoln Memorial before you."

"Not on your life!" Steve shouted and then they both shot off like rockets, sprinting so fast that they almost left steam rising in the concrete. Bucky ran as fast as he could but Steve quickly gained on him and then passed him by a pace or two. _Oh, hell no, he is not winning this. _Just as they were nearing the Memorial, Bucky shouted, "Stop, there's a kid choking!"

"What?" Steve screeched to a halt, wildly looking around. "Where?"

Bucky blew past him, laughing, and then raced past the Memorial. Steve stomped up to him, scowling, and poked him in the chest. "Cheating doesn't count, Bucky."

Bucky gave Steve his most innocent smile (which he was sure didn't actually look innocent at all). "Sorry, Cap. I'm the Winter Soldier. I play dirty."

Steve sighed. "Ah, fine, how much was it? Fifteen dollars? Twenty?" He began to pull out his wallet and Bucky shoved his arm away.

"Forget the money," he said, "and take out Sharon instead."

"You're out of your mind," said Steve, putting his wallet away.

"I won, you have to listen to me," Bucky replied. "Come on—I think she likes you. I think you like her. What's the hold up?"

"That's a lot of _thinking _and not enough _knowing_," said Steve, raising an eyebrow. Seeing Bucky's argumentative expression, he threw his hands and said, "Fine, I'll think about it—but give me some time, okay?"

"What, six months isn't enough time?" Bucky muttered but he let the matter drop, since Steve had more or less agreed. He knew he was being pushy but a part of him really wanted Steve to get a life and get on with his life. He, Bucky, had a lot of demons keeping him up at night and holding him back—but what was Steve's issue? Why didn't he find some girl, find some friends, get a chance to _live_? Even with Bucky back, even with good friends like Sam and Ari, and good acquaintances like Kendall Chengary, Hal McAfee, Selena Wu, and the few other folks around the neighborhood who were friendly with Steve…he was still a largely shut-in. A recluse. A hermit. And Bucky simply didn't understand why.

Still, he knew how to interact with people far better than Bucky did. If he just put forth the slightest bit of effort, he could have a life again. This was why Bucky kept pushing for him to give Sharon another chance. She was smart, capable, and she had a connection to Steve's past. She was perfect for him.

They both collapsed onto a park bench and watched the sky turn bluer and bluer as the sun came out and the first signs of human life began to show: store lights winking out, sleek Mercedes and BMWs whizzing past on the roads, joggers beginning their laps around the monument, even a family of (very strange looking in fluorescent pink t-shirts) tourists gathering around Lincoln's marble feet.

"Do you think this is ever going to stop feeling weird?" Steve suddenly asked.

"What?" Bucky asked.

"Time travel," Steve said seriously, not a hint of a smile on his face. "You and me. It's weird, right? Normal humans don't get to experience this."

"Normal humans also don't turn into giant green monsters," said Bucky, referring to Dr. Banner, a friend of Steve's, "or fly around in metal suits. Looks like the world is changing. But no, I don't think it'll ever stop feeling weird." He paused for a moment and then said, "It's not exactly a coincidence, you know? HYDRA would have taken whatever man fell off that train—but that man was always going to be me because I was always with you."

"I know," said Steve quickly, apologetically. "It's my fault. And I am so s—"

"That's not what I meant!" Bucky took a deep breath. Always so noble, Steve. "It's no one's fault. It's not like you—I mean, no one could have predicted what HYDRA would do. Besides, they'd already fiddled with me before I fell."

"What exactly did they do to you then?" Steve asked delicately.

Bucky shrugged, staring out at the Lincoln Memorial. The stone face was blank, slightly weathered with age, staring out at all, impassive and unknowing. It had been built during the very early years of his childhood. He'd never visited it before but he had planned to, once he got done with school. He remembered he'd had a plan for his life. He was going to get married to some girl and then travel the world with her. HYDRA had ruined all that. Sometimes—often—Bucky wished they'd just let him die. What did one more man dying matter? Scores of men had died during the war. And yet _he_, of all people, had been given a second chance—a twisted, second chance. It was like a rose with deadly thorns. A delicate, precious gift but one that hurt, could make him bleed at any time.

"I have no idea," he finally said, truthfully. "They…I don't remember much." He remembered being strapped to a hard metal gurney and sharp pricks at the inner corners of his arms. They'd made him feel disoriented and lost, his vision swirling slightly, and he'd begun to feel as if he were floating, floating high above the gurney, the room, even the building…vanishing into the sky. He'd begun to forget his name, his life, even the name of the country he fought for—so he struggled to remember. He mumbled his name and his identifying ID number to himself, a chanted mantra that eventually began to slur together after the hours and lose all meaning. He didn't know what would have happened if he'd stayed there longer than he had because Steve had showed up then. Bucky still remembered blinking, feeling as if he were in a very strange dream, because his _best friend _was looming over him, looking taller than seemed normal, mouthing things that Bucky couldn't understand. He'd thought he'd conjured up Steve to comfort him in his haze of confusion—until Steve had dragged him from the table. Then Bucky had realized it was real: his best friend was here, he was bigger than he was, and he was going to save him. It mirrored every instance in their lives where Bucky had magically shown up to save Steve from someone kicking his ass…except the situation was more dire this time.

"Well, I guess it's pointless talking about this," said Steve. "It was a long time ago and you're free from HYDRA, so…"

But was it _really _pointless? Bucky had started to wonder, in recent weeks. What if it was something HYDRA had done to him that was taking a toll on his sanity? Ari would have said it was post-traumatic stress disorder and Bucky would have agreed initially, but lately he was wondering more and more whether it wasn't something else. He had his files and he'd flipped through them but no one in their group could make head or tail about the science involved in the Winter Soldier project. Even Natasha, who Bucky didn't see as much anymore, had admitted that this was beyond her.

"Stark might be able to figure it out," she'd started but Bucky had immediately shot the idea down. He'd...encountered Tony Stark a few times and while the man was undoubtedly a "good guy" he also unnerved Bucky. Bucky didn't want the likes of Tony Stark knowing what had been done to make him so mechanical. He had a feeling Stark would crack some tiny jokes, eyes gleaming in ways that Bucky didn't like, and he wasn't in the mood to stand for that. Stark could be downright cruel and considering that he already knew some of Bucky's darker crimes... No. He didn't want Stark reading his files, ever.

"Well, what about Dr. Jane Foster?" Steve had asked.

Natasha had shaken her head. "No. Dr. Foster is a brilliant woman, but she doesn't deal with this type of science. I'd ask Dr. Banner, but he's off the grid and he wants to stay that way and I don't…"

"Yeah, don't bother him," Steve had said quickly. "The man deserves his peace."

"There is one person," Natasha had said abruptly, sudden light coming into her eyes. "Brilliant girl, kind of the shy and sweet type, I think she might be able to make a little headway on it. She has a partner who works with her, he's more focused on technology but considering Barnes _is _part technology, he may be able to help. Dr. Simmons, heard of her?" Steve and Bucky had both shaken their heads. "Well, I think she could help decipher some of this," Natasha had said. "She's busy with her team so it may take a while—and I'd obviously ask her to keep it private—but it's your best bet. What do you say?" She'd looked straight at Bucky in that typical Natasha way: a bit sardonic, vaguely thoughtful, slightly calculating, and partly amused.

Bucky had agreed. He wasn't a fan of a total stranger reading through his files but what choice did he have? Besides, there were already a handful of people at the remaining tiny-scale SHIELD who knew who he was. He wouldn't be able to hide for forever. He'd taken out the pages that talked about his missions and victims and Ari had helped him make a photocopy of all of the science-y pages. Then he'd given Steve the bundle of papers and Steve had promised to give it to Natasha, who in turn promised they'd make their way to this Dr. Simmons.

It had been months. He still hadn't heard word from Dr. Simmons. Natasha had updated him once and warned him to remember that it may be a while before Dr. Simmons got back to them, as she was a busy woman and off the grid much of the time, doing God knows what.

"I have to get going," said Steve, standing up. "The Director wants to see me."

"Co-director," Bucky corrected. A few months ago they'd all found out something a bit strange: Fury technically wasn't the director of SHIELD. He told them so himself, telling them that he'd placed a different man in charge. He wouldn't tell them who that man was, only that he was around the world doing important things. "You'll be acquainted with him when the time is right," Fury had said at a small meeting with the highest-ranking agents. "And you'll have to call _him _'director' then. But in the meantime you may carry on calling me director." And then he'd grinned, one of the first (and only) times Bucky had seen him smile. It was startling to see. Bucky wondered who the new technical director was. Fury himself vanished for weeks at a time, leaving other agents in charge, doing God-knows-what, but Bucky had never seen neither hair nor hide of this mysterious new director.

"Don't let him hear you saying that," Steve joked. "He may not technically be director anymore but I doubt Nick Fury has ever been _co_- anything in his life."

Bucky didn't doubt it. The man was as prickly as a porcupine. The thought of him working with someone as an equal partner didn't compute.

Steve waved goodbye and then jogged off to his motorcycle, no doubt. Bucky wondered if Steve had gotten a motorcycle on _his _behalf. Steve had never been interested in cars; he'd liked art and comics and drawing, as a young man. Bucky had been the one who liked fixing up cars and motorcycles, even though his mother told him that no self-respecting gentleman drove a motorcycle. A motorcycle didn't exactly seem like the type of thing Steve would buy, which led Bucky to think perhaps he'd done it in Bucky's memory. The thought made Bucky feel awkward, like perhaps he should have been reciprocating and painting masterpieces in Steve's honor. Except Bucky was a _terrible _artist. He could hardly draw a stick figure without it looking like a hideous monster.

He sighed and got up to head back to his own motorcycle. Yet another day filled with aimless wandering, mixed-up thoughts, and trying to fit back into a world that he wasn't sure wanted someone like him in it.

* * *

Across the world, the midday sun beat down on the city of Rome in full force. It was an early summer day and tourists were already flooding the cobblestone streets of the Vatican, the ultimate seat of power in the Catholic world…in this century, at least, anyway. The man racing through the streets as fast as he could remembered a time when Spain had been the throne upon which the Church sat and governed the world. The man remembered because the man had been _been _there, been alive during those times. However, this was something no one knew. He was a holy, God-fearing righteous man and so were those around him, but he knew that there would be terrible consequences if anyone ever found out what he was (providing they even believed him to start with; many would just say he was mad and needed to retire from his life in the public to a life of piety and peace in the rolling Tuscan hills, perhaps at a monastery).

_Oh God, oh God, oh God, please_, his mind screamed in a panic as he ran uphill through the narrow, winding streets as fast as he could. He was a bit overweight and elderly as well and couldn't move as fast as he once could in his youth, in his days of playing _calcio _(football) in the streets with his young friends. But that had been centuries ago. Much time had passed since then. Some days he could scarcely remember his own origins.

_This cannot be happening_, he thought to himself, wheezing, clutching a stitch in his side. He stumbled and accidentally bumped into a woman with brassy blonde hair standing outside one of the tiny churches that dotted the Vatican and Italy throughout. Such small churches—small one-roomed buildings built centuries ago—were commonplace, nothing to get worked up over, but these mad tourists seemed to lose their minds when they saw them.

He stumbled around a corner and leaned against the wall, bending over and breathing heavily. His chest was burning and his heart was pounding and stuttering alarmingly. He suddenly felt very afraid. He had had a physician visit him a year ago and the physician had told him that his heart had a stutter, an extra beat that was irregular. He had thanked the physician and had never invited him back or gone to any follow-up visits. _I have lived this long_, he had told himself, _I can continue to do so with God's grace. _He didn't exactly remember when he had turned to Christ but it had been a century or two ago. He'd been suffering through a mid-life crisis of sorts (though his had come _much _later than most normal people's did), wondering what kind of creature he was, why he aged so slowly, what was the _point _in his living so long? And then he had wandered into a church one day. It had been silent and empty but the solitude had brought him peace like nothing ever had. And he had converted that very day.

_This is impossible_, he thought to himself. _How can someone have discovered me? How can they mean to do this to me? It is an abomination, what they have with them! A work against God! _

A sudden bang around the corner made him start in fright. He quickly crossed himself, silently praying to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit for aid, and then he darted through the closest door he could see. It led to a small room with some tables and a counter. There were no lights on and the room was empty of any human life; it felt cool and dark, unlike the uncomfortably hot and bright sun outside. He wiped the sweat from his face, trembling, and let out a cry of fear as the door slammed open suddenly. _How did they know I was in here?!_

"Please!" he cried, backing up against a wall, holding up a trembling hand. "Please, this is monstrously sinful! You do not have to do this!"

The person took no notice of him. They wore all black and had a black hood pulled over their head so that their face was thrown into shadows. "You're perfect," they said quietly in perfect Italian, taking no notice of his frantic babbles or trembling. "Normal people work, of course, but you—you're a treasure trove. I'm glad I've managed to find you." They took the object out from their pocket, pulsing and shining with brilliant green light, and he let out a cry, throwing an arm across his eyes and averting his gaze.

_I will not look_, he thought to himself fiercely, though he was still shaking with fear. _I will not look_. He began to whisper prayers under his breath as the person walked towards him. Despite himself, he found himself pleading, "Please, _please_—"

They held the object against his cheek and he only had a moment to scream before he erupted in unimaginable pain. It felt like his entire body was being ripped apart. Memories danced in his mind as he felt an enormous sucking sensation, like he was being sucked and torn apart by one of those—what did they call them?—cyclones. The entire process only lasted a few moments and then the person stepped back. The objects brilliant light dulled a bit when it lost contact with the man's skin and the man fall to the ground, as dry and withered as an old husk, powdery and bone-white, hair as white and fluffy as cotton candy. And his eyes…there were all white. His entire pupil and iris had gone snow-white. His teeth had fallen out and he lay there, stiff as a wooden board, looking as withered and wizened as an ancient mummy, mouth open in an eternal scream.

It was days before anyone found him. And when they did, they also found one other thing: five vertical black slash marks painted in black paint on the dusty window of the room, thin black streams dried as they dripped down the window like tears of the damned.

**A/N: Apologies for the lack of Ari! She'll be back next chapter, don't worry. Review, review, review! Also, wink to Agents of SHIELD thrown in! Coulson's team may find its way wandering into this story. We shall see. **


	4. Chapter 4

"HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME, ESPERANZA?"

"But Ramon—he looked just like you—"

"The MAILMAN looked like me? ¿Que? I've never heard such garbage!"

"But Ramon!"

Bucky woke to the sounds of a couple yelling at each other in Spanish. He blinked the sweat out of his eyes—the result of another night of tossing and turning, twisting his sheets over disturbing dreams (though these had been only mildly bad; he'd actually fallen asleep, at the very least)—as he tried to focus on the sound of their voices. For a moment he thought it was someone in the apartment complex. But then he remembered that he'd scoped out every single tenant in the building before moving in (he wanted to make sure there wasn't anyone laying in wait to ambush him) and there was no Spanish or Mexican couple that lived in the building. Only a Brazilian couple that lived far below on the basement floor. Too far for him to hear them and besides, Brazilian people spoke Portuguese. These voices also sounded vaguely _fake_, as if they were coming from a…

Television. He suddenly bolted upright, realizing far too late that the voices were coming from _his _television—one that he definitely hadn't left on. _My reflexes are slow_, he thought to himself furiously as he launched himself at his bedroom door, wrenched it open (it slammed against the opposing wall with a shuddering smack), and lunged down the hall, round the small corner ready to kill whoever had entered his apartment uninvited—

Only to find Ari sitting on his sofa, watching a Spanish soap opera with her mouth slightly open. He halted to a stop and she looked up at him. "Oh good," she said. "You're awake." She checked her Stark phone (Tony had gotten to her as well, except he'd done it much more nicely; he'd sent her a phone and a bunch of other shiny gadgets with a note that looked suspiciously like it was written in a woman's neat cursive that said _To our lovely friend who saved the day_. Ari had actually been quite excited, since Stark gadgets now rivaled those from Apple and Lumina, the two other biggest markets out there; Ari refused to buy from Lumina on principle, saying any company stupid enough to reward a criminal psycho like her brother with a job didn't deserve her money). "It's pretty late."

Bucky looked at the analogue clock on the wall (he'd refused to get a digital one; he was trying to act more like the old Bucky Barnes and the old Bucky Barnes wouldn't have grown up with a digital clock). "Ari, it's seven a.m.," he said.

"I know, it's so late, right?" Ari glanced at him again and said, "Aren't you cold? It's kind of chilly in here."

He was actually kind of warm—he always felt slightly overheated these days, especially his head—but he suddenly became hyperaware that he wasn't wearing a shirt. Ari didn't seem too affected (after all, she'd once _bathed _him) but his skin felt like it had heated up some more suddenly so he hurried back to his room, threw on a t-shirt that said MADMAN WITH A BOX that he'd picked up at some thrift shop (he'd found it darkly funny; he _was_, in a way, a madman and he'd certainly been frozen in a box for long periods of time…), and came back out to sit next to Ari. He couldn't believe he'd forgotten that Ari had a key to his place. She hadn't used it in a few weeks.

He didn't ask her why she was here; he knew she'd tell in her own time. So he waited for the next fifteen minutes while she watched her Spanish drama. He even tried to watch it with her. It seemed the woman had carried on a two-year affair with the mailman and was now trying to claim she thought it was her husband this whole time because she had amnesia from when she was in a car crash four years ago. And the husband was angry except he didn't have much of a leg to stand on either because the episode ended on a cliffhanger and as it turned out, he'd gotten his wife's sister pregnant…for the second time.

_This makes even my life seem normal_, Bucky thought to himself, mildly amused but more disturbed. Did people find this weirdness entertaining?

The program ended and Ari turned the TV off. They sat in silence for a moment and she grabbed Bucky's right hand and traced a circle onto it. "So."

Bucky tried to ignore how her hands on his hand felt. He still wasn't used to human touch, so it gave him a shuddery, jerky feeling inside, like he wanted to pull his hands away...but Ari wasn't so bad. "So," he repeated.

"So I _might _have had the day off at the clinic," she said. "And I _might _be used to waking up early. And so I _might _have been bored and I _might _have come over here to see if you wanted to do something."

"That's a lot of 'might's," Bucky noted.

Ari traced the word M-I-G-H-T onto the back of his hand. "Yup."

He pulled his hand away as he got up to make himself some coffee. He'd never been fond of it, still wasn't in fact, but the acrid taste of black coffee usually jolted him awake after another restless night. "Well, I'm not busy today," he said. "I'm never busy." He was vaguely aware of how pathetic it sounded to admit he had no life, and had it been anyone else sitting here, he might not have even done it. He might have acted like he had things of importance to do. But this was Ari; there was no point hiding things from her.

Well, there was no point hiding _most _things from her. Because she still was in the dark about a few aspects of his life lately…

"Where's Steve?" she asked, twisting around on the sofa to rest her elbows on the edge and then her chin on her elbows.

"Fury wanted to see him," he replied, "but I'm not sure if he'll still be there when we go back."

Nick Fury had always been a mysterious man—the oldest high-ranking SHIELD agents could attest to that—but this past year he'd amped up his mysteriousness and lack of availability, if that were even possible. For the first four months after the Triskelion had gone up in flames, Fury had vanished completely. Radio silent, no sightings of him; he truly was a dead man to everyone except Natasha, Steve, and Sam, Bucky, and Ari who just happened to know because they'd been along for the ride a year when ago when they'd hunted down Bucky's files and memories in Pennsylvania. Then Fury had suddenly appeared back in D.C., much to the shock of lower-level SHIELD agents remaining. And ever since then, he'd partly been there and partly vanished. He was occasionally at 24 Pryde, barking orders and planning missions, but more often than not, he was gone completely. Disappeared into the world, doing God knows what, meeting with God knows who. And then it had only been a little while back they they'd realized he wasn't even _technically _the director anymore (by his own doing) and this mysterious figure was, who none of them had met (though Bucky suspected Natasha knew who it was). Bucky figured that whenever Fury vanished, he was going to meet with this mysterious new director—though he could have been wrong, of course. Perhaps Fury was sunning himself out on the French Riviera, having decided that with SHIELD shot mostly to hell, he only had to be there half the time anyway.

"So I think I'm going to make some house calls today," said Ari casually. "Want to come?"

"Isn't that against HIPPA or whatever?" Bucky asked. God knew he'd heard enough about these guidelines for privacy, conduct, and safety this past year.

"Well, yeah, sort of," admitted Ari, "because I'm doing these house calls…er, off the books. I have the day off but I want to check up on some people who never came back for their follow-up visit. And it's kind of a rougher neighborhood so I thought…not that I need you to _protect _me, but I thought maybe you'd wanna come along…"

He realized she _was_, in a way, hoping he'd come along to protect her. She worked in a clinic in the rougher, more dangerous part of town but working in a free clinic was one thing—making house calls, going _into _these peoples' homes was another. He knew that being in poverty didn't automatically make someone a thug but he also knew crime and violence were highest in these areas. "I'll go," he nodded. He'd protect Ari no matter what. It wasn't as if he could ever really repay her for taking a chance on him and ultimately saving his…well, his _existence_. But he'd spend the rest of his life trying.

"Good!" Ari brightened, clapping once. "We can get lunch or something later too."

Bucky got ready while Ari made herself a thermos of coffee as well (she kept a pink thermos at his apartment since she swung in so often; Bucky was sure that the neighbors all thought he had a very erratic girlfriend who didn't appear to understand normal human timings, since she turned up at the strangest hours. Being a nurse, she was used to strange hours). At the very last minute, he loaded the inside of his black combat jacket with weapons. The jacket was a perfect thing—it looked like a normal black windbreaker type of jacket on the outside (albeit slightly bulky) but it had lots of straps and pockets on the inside for weapons. He wasn't going to unnecessarily flash any weapons in these areas—waving around a knife or gun was asking to be challenged to some sort of fight—but he was definitely going to be prepared. He doubted Ari had brought her own weapons, she was always forgetting despite being an agent (or perhaps she forgot on _purpose_; she still found extreme violence incredibly distasteful), but he had a smaller pocketknife just perfect for her slight frame. It had a wooden handle with one small mother of pearl inlaid into the top. Steve had given it to him, telling him that it had been _Bucky's _back in the day and it had somehow been saved with Steve's belongings when Peggy Carter saved them. Bucky had probably given it to Steve to defend himself with, he didn't really remember. Now he was giving it to Ari.

It seemed Bucky Barnes was always going to spend his life trying to protect people ultimately much better than him. It wasn't something he was bitter over. He accepted it as his role. He wasn't as good as these two, wasn't as moral, so they had their roles to play—and he had his.

His showering, getting ready, and then eating breakfast while Ari flipped through the early morning talk shows ate up an hour so it was around eight a.m. by the time they left.

Ari drove them and it was noticeably visible that they were heading deeper into the more poverty-stricken part of town. They stopped seeing shiny BMWs and Mercedes and started seeing more beat up Toyotas and older cars from the '90s and '80s as well. He did see one gleaming Jaguar gliding slowly on a parallel street for just one second. Heavy bass music was pumping from it and all of the windows were tinted, so he assumed it was a gang member or a drug kingpin. These types of guys likes to show off their flashy wealth and intimidate the areas they targeted and controlled the most. Weeds stuck up from in between sidewalk cracks, graffiti covered the walls of buildings, and many stores had bars and metal grates on them, something one didn't see in the wealthy section of town.

And yet, despite the obvious poverty and evidence of crime (or at least young teenage hoodlums), there was life. Bucky observed it silently. It was a brilliant, sunny summer day and small children played hopscotch and double dutch on sidewalks and outside front stoops while mothers scolded them, hefting laundry baskets and grocery bags under their arms. Teenagers lazed on front steps of apartment buildings and skinny townhouses, smoking and joking around, and he saw one shop owner watering two potted plants with brilliant pink flowers outside his small Mexican convenience store. Life went on for these people despite their more difficult living situations.

_"There's a school dance coming up," Bucky remarked casually, lolling his head to see Steve who was bent over a sketchbook, sitting at the picnic table. They were both sixteen and spending their Saturday afternoon lazing around at the local park. _

_ "So?" Steve asked absentmindedly._

_ "So you goin'?" Bucky asked._

_ "Nope," Steve said resolutely. His eyes were still fixed on his sketchbook but his shoulders tensed just a tiny bit and Bucky knew he'd captured Steve's attention._

_ "Why not?" Bucky asked lazily, sticking a dandelion stem in his mouth and ripped it apart with his teeth. "Pretty girls in nice dresses, spike the punch a little bit…what's not to like?"_

_ "I don't exactly have money for a new suit, Buck," Steve said. "And my old one is too small—even for _me_."_

_ Well…Steve did have a point. Bucky himself didn't have much money, he and his folks weren't very well off, but Steve had even less money than he did. No one had much money these days; Bucky had seen the state of the economy and the stock market crash really take a toll on everyone around him. People looked thinner, more withdrawn these days, and clothes didn't seem as new or shiny. An ice cream parlor down the street from Bucky's apartment had even closed because the owner wasn't getting enough business these days. _

_ And yet, life went on. Young people had dances, snuck around, fell in love. Bucky had had his eye on that new girl, Angelica, for a while now. He wanted to go to the dance to see her but he wouldn't go if Steve couldn't go. _

"We're here." Ari's words jerked him out his memory and he rubbed his forehead. The tiny throbs and pricks of pain that pulsed behind his eyes at the onslaught of memories—they never seemed to go away. Even after getting his memory back, he remembered a new thing every now and then, in full color and detail, and it always hurt his head to do so. He turned to see Ari watching him closely, carefully. "New memory," she announced. She knew what it looked like when he got lost in one. "What triggered it?"

"Uh, poverty," he said slowly.

"Wanna tell me about it?" she asked. He could read the curiosity on her face, see the questions in her bright blue eyes. Her eyes matched the brilliant summer skies today almost perfectly.

"Not right now," he said.

She shrugged and nodded, getting his need for privacy. She was usually pretty good about privacy. She was, of course, breaking confidentiality rules by bringing Bucky along to her unofficial house calls but he was glad he'd brought her because along with seeing the normal human life on the streets, he'd caught sight of several unsavory looking characters loitering against alley walls and outside store front stoops, smoking and silently eyeing their car as they drove past. People in a shiny, clean, and expensive car wasn't exactly normal around these parts and Bucky didn't want anyone thinking they were a naïve and lost couple who could be easily robbed. Anyone tried anything, he'd make them regret being born.

It was around nine a.m. now. It had taken an hour to make here, simply because of D.C. traffic, which was almost always hideous and never let up, not even in the early hours on a Saturday morning. This was the downside to living in a city full of government, business, and tourists; it was almost always too crowded and congested for Bucky's liking. He didn't feel stable around crowds. Living in isolation in the mountains of Tennessee might have been safer for him but then he'd have to leave Steve and Ari and SHIELD behind and he didn't want to do that.

They were parked outside a tiny one story house boxed in next to others of the same type, looking almost like small garages than actual houses. This one was painted pale yellow though the paint was peeling and chipping. The tiny patch of lawn was un-mown and Bucky saw a naked Barbie doll laying in the grass.

"Alright, keep quiet and try not to be scary," Ari said in a low voice as they walked up the front door and Ari knocked.

"Scary," Bucky repeated quizzically.

"You get your Winter Soldier face on sometimes," Ari explained, "and it kind of looks like you want to murder everyone in sight. So don't do that. This lady is already—Carmen!" she exclaimed as a _heavily _pregnant Mexican woman opened the door. She was so tiny that Bucky couldn't understand how she could be this pregnant. She had long dark curling hair that was wet and a pretty face but it was screwed up with stress and worry and she had dark shadows under her eyes. She wore a loose pale blue shirt-dress with black tights and a colorful shawl around her shoulders, despite the fact that it was summer. She held a wooden spoon in one hand. He could hear the sounds of a TV blaring inside and kids shouting at each other. A toddler was crying somewhere.

Ari began speaking in Spanish to the woman. Bucky didn't understand. He spoke Russian and English and he knew some broken Romanian and Polish but that was about it. HYDRA hadn't cared much about making him multilingual; he killed people, he didn't chat with them. And interrogation had been for people like Agent Rumlow who had more people skills than the Winter Soldier (though most people on the planet could boast the same, really).

The woman looked at Bucky and he could read the fear on her face. He wondered if her husband was home. He tried to make himself less imposing by hunching over slightly and giving a tentative smile. He hoped he looked friendly and not like a wolf who was planning on devouring her. Being friendly, looking normal—this still sometimes too practice. A guilty part of him knew he should have been trying harder to be his jokey, talkative old self now that he had his memories back—but the thing was he had the _Winter Soldier's _memories as well. And it was much easier to slip back into the routine of ignoring people and avoiding social contact than it was to…well, _be _social and friendly.

Ari spoke a few more words in Spanish, probably reassuring her that Bucky wasn't here to kill her or drag her to the police, and finally the woman nodded and let them in. They both stepped inside and the smell of something savory cooking assaulted him in the face, as did the heat. This woman didn't have AC so ceiling fans and plug-in fans whirred and lazily spun warm summer air around the tiny house.

The woman gestured to the family room where three kids—boys, the eldest who looked about fifteen and the youngest who looked about eight—lay sprawled on the ground, watching an action movie on the TV. Toys littered the floor and the crying continued from a different room at the back of the house. "She says you can wait here," Ari said. "I'm going to go to her bedroom and check up on her, okay? Stay here." Ari gently guided the woman to the room where the toddler was crying and Bucky heard a door shut. After a moment, the toddler stopped crying as well.

Not having any idea what to do now, he gingerly stepped over the dangerous LEGOs littering the floor and sat down on the sofa. He looked at the TV; some movie with giant robots destroying New York City was on. He watched while a scene showed a semi-truck racing down a highway that suddenly transformed into a robot. It truly was amazing, the technology humans had come up with these days. Bucky remembered a time when simple black and white films could elicit gasps of delight and wonder.

The eldest boy nearest to his feet grunted something to him. Bucky had no idea what he'd said so he studiously ignored the boy and kept his eyes on the TV. Young people were something he had absolutely no time or patience for. They were the ones who stared the most often and the most mercilessly. They were also rude. Bucky disliked attitude and arrogance in young people immensely and he often itched to wrap his hands around the throats of local street punks and teach them a lesson in manners, show them that there were _real _dangerous people in the world and some teenage boys on the street flicking lighters weren't them. But that, of course, wouldn't be…socially acceptable. So he controlled his urges.

"Who're you?" the boy asked again. "You with the doctor lady?"

Bucky waited a slow moment before answering. "Nurse," he grunted, "and yes."

"She's hot," the boy remarked appreciatively, "even if she a snow bunny. You bangin' her?" The younger boys giggled.

Bucky's fists suddenly flexed slightly and he clenched his teeth and stared at the TV, determined to ignore the boy. _He's just a stupid kid_, he told himself. _Saying stupid things that all boys do. Do _not _kill him. _

"I'd do her," the boy continued.

Bucky rolled his eyes slightly at the boy's attempt to sound like some sort of macho big man and he relaxed his fists. There was no need to get worked up over a silly child. A sky scraper fell onscreen just as he heard the bedroom door open. The woman waddled back out, this time a little girl—she looked about two—in her arms. She still looked tired but slightly happier. She and Ari spoke for a few moments, Ari a bit slower and not as fluent in her speak. Ari handed the woman some pamphlets and then they were gone. Bucky didn't give the house a backwards glance. He could hear the woman scolding the boys as they left.

"She's alright," remarked Ari, more to herself than anything. "Expecting twins. A lot of stress and it's not helping her…I think she's definitely going to deliver premature…but then, people with twins often do so… I just wish she could lower her stress levels slightly but with that many kids and no help around the house, I guess it's unavoidable. Her husband works all day, some factory an hour away…"

Bucky sensed Ari needed to get this off her chest and she wasn't even really talking to _him_ so he let her ramble as she drove to her next location. Ari was a strange mix of tough and bleeding heart. She was stoic and could internalize tough problems and issues, could handle death and crying and handling difficult people (after all, she'd somehow singlehandedly befriended and helped the Winter Soldier)—but she also took hardships and losses very hard. They affected her. She truly wanted to _help _people but there was only so much one woman could do and he knew this frustrated her. If there were some way she could become a superhero and save every poor, sick, and ailing person in the world, he knew she'd do it.

Their next stop didn't go as peacefully. It was the apartment of a white woman with frizzy blonde hair and a pair of 10-year-old twin girls who were very silent and sort of empty-looking. Seeing their vacant expressions and comparing them to the rude but lively boys at the last house made Bucky uncomfortable. Shouldn't children be _doing _something, such as playing or watching TV or sassing elders? But they merely sat slumped on the sofa, staring off into space. The woman had some kind of disability or disease but she wasn't friendly or receptive at all. Ari tried to talk to her about coming back for a second visit, treatment options, programs, but the woman merely darted her eyes around wildly and scowled and eventually demanded, "The hell you doing here?"

Ari took a deep breath. "Ms. Bartlett, I'm here to talk about—"

"Get the hell outta my house!" the woman suddenly yelled, as if she hadn't taken in a word of what Ari had been trying to discuss for the past twenty minutes. It was as if she'd _just _realized Ari was here—and she hadn't seemed to notice Bucky at all. The twin girls had, though. They stared at him as if they could see through him but they looked at him nonetheless.

"Ms. Bartlett—" Ari tried one last time but the woman sprang to her feet and threateningly picked up a nearby plate and brandished it wildly.

"Okay, time to go," Bucky muttered. He grabbed Ari's shoulder and steered her out of there as Ari called over her shoulder, "I've left the clinic's card if you want to swing by—!"

"You're going to get yourself killed, you know that?" Bucky asked as they walked down the steps back to her car.

"Hey, I'm a SHIELD agent now, I can handle my own," Ari joked. "I've been trained, remember, Soldier?"

Bucky did. And he still sometimes doubted whether that was enough. Had it been the _old _SHIELD, the one that had existed before it had fallen, he'd have been secure in the knowledge that Ari's training would keep her safe. But they didn't have many resources now and he had a feeling that her training had neither been as in depth nor as skilled as he would have preferred. There just weren't training facilities and agents available to put her through the grueling and complex paces most SHIELD agents were put through. Physical, mental, emotional—all of it was included in training. But Ari had just received physical training and only basic training at that. He knew she could withstand torture—she'd withstood it once for _him_, after all—but being tortured once for a few hours was different than being tortured and psychologically abused for weeks and weeks on end in total isolation. He was worried about how she'd fare if she ended up in a situation like that.

He recalled the woman's waxy and sunken face and shook his head. Drugs. One crime that he'd never indulged in and one he didn't plan to. If there was one thing Bucky _craved_, it was control. He needed utmost control over himself and his life. This was why he didn't even drink. He was afraid of losing control for even moment. This was also why his day terrors and nightmares bothered him even more than was normal. He didn't like feeling like a loose cannon, though that was all he'd felt like since recovering himself.

They visited three more houses but Bucky decided to stay in the car this time. They couldn't find anywhere to park outside the final apartment building so Ari parked down the street in front of a convenience store and walked down the street to the apartment building. He watched Ari enter the apartment building and then he leaned back and closed his eyes, trying to zone out. Normally he didn't relax his guard for one moment, was always scanning for danger, but nothing had really happened today and most people nearby seemed harmless. And he really was…very sleepy…

He dozed. His instincts wouldn't let him fully fall asleep but he closed his eyes and drifted into a half dreamlike state. Not asleep enough for nightmares, so that part was nice. The windows were open just an inch and a warm breeze snuck into the car, warming his face. That was also nice. He could hear the faint sounds of kids playing somewhere down the street and then was warming his face…

It was probably because he lulled himself into an unusual lazy state that he missed what happened next. Normally the guy wouldn't have gotten even _close _to Ari because Bucky would have seen him coming from a mile away and stopped him. As it was, he opened his eyes lazily twenty-five minutes later (as he had been doing every five minutes or so to just glance around) to see Ari walking down the street towards the car—and a man moving in a shuffling way towards Ari. He would have looked like any other homeless person except he was moving a little too quickly for comfort: he had a target.

Bucky sat straight up, his eyes flying wide open as the man grabbed Ari's left arm, wildly snatching for her handbag, which was hanging onto the crook of her left elbow. Bucky grabbed the car door handle and would probably have ripped the car door off in his haste to get to her—but to his immense surprise, Ari swiftly handled the situation more quickly than even Bucky could move. She swung low and then leaped back, slamming his right fist—thumb inside her fist, just as Bucky had taught her—into his face and sending the man spinning. As he fell, Bucky realized he wasn't even a homeless guy, just a twentysomething street punk with ginger hair who had worn a baggy overcoat to pretend like he was homeless. He had a gold chain around his neck, for God's sake. The man stumbled and fell over, probably more from surprise than Ari's force (she _was_ tiny, after all) but then she lifted her right leg and slammed him right in the face with her foot. He fell over with a yell and she swung her bag at his head, slamming it with one well-aimed hit. Bucky heard a dull _thunk _and the man let out a low groan and was still.

Unbelievable. She'd knocked him out in about thirty seconds. He was skinny, of course, and she'd have a much tougher time with an assailant with more muscles—but _still_, she'd knocked him out in half a minute. Less time, honestly. Bucky couldn't help but feel a tiny thrill of gleeful pride in her. She'd come very far from when he first met her.

She hurried down the street and slid into the driver's seat, wiping a strand of dark brown hair off of her slightly-sweaty face. She turned and grinned at Bucky. "Told you I could handle myself."

Bucky raised his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth turned up a little bit. "Hey, never said you couldn't." He looked at the man who was laying on the ground, stirring feebly and groaning. "Are we just going to leave him?"

"Yeah, he's just some wimpy loser," she said. "Not some serial killer or anything. Maybe he'll think twice the next time he tries to mug someone. Besides, I don't want to call the cops." This, Bucky was sure, was added more for his benefit than hers. Ari knew Bucky was very jumpy around cops, almost as jumpy as he was around doctors. Authority figures in general made him feel very unsettled.

"So," she said, turning the keys in the ignition and pulling into the street. "Want to get lunch?"

"Lunch sounds good," said Bucky.

Ari drove down the street and they sat in silence for a few minutes. But then she suddenly silently lifted a fist towards him, eyes still straight on the road. Bucky suppressed a sigh but smiled slightly to himself, keeping his own eyes straight on the road, and held out a fist as well, returning her fist bump.


	5. Chapter 5

He usually had at least a week of peace in between missions. Longer, in fact; SHIELD wasn't exactly well-run these days. Sometimes two weeks or three weeks could pass before a new mission was assigned to him. But he was called in only a few days after his last mission, the mission where Agent Lewinski had died. He was called in two days after he and Ari had gone on her house calls, first thing in the morning. She'd been extremely busy at the clinic and her other places of volunteer or work; Ari was involved with a lot of personal projects. But she showed up at 24 Pryde the same day and time that he did, so he knew that she was being called in for this mission as well.

Fury wasn't there—of course he wasn't. Instead, Agent Bauer briefed them on their mission. Agent Bauer was one of the oldest remaining loyal SHIELD agents. She was around sixty and had been grievously injured fifteen years ago, rendering her incapable of going out into the field—but she was still a good leader. She'd never wanted the director's position but she'd loyally served Fury when he'd been the director and she was a trusted ally with all the best, oldest, and most legendary agents. Bauer was a name well-known at SHIELD. Bucky liked her because she'd never given him shit for his past; in fact, she'd been completely indifferent towards him, as if his past were not even relevant but didn't even _exist_. He was just Agent—or Sergeant—Barnes to her.

"We've got a small HYDRA problem that needs to be contained," she stated crisply, as soon as everyone who been called was assembled in the office where Fury had also met with them. Ari was there, Agent Kaplan, Agent Chang, and another agent whose name Bucky didn't know. "We were alerted of it an hour ago. Texas, a small ranch out in the middle of goddamn nowhere." She rolled her eyes. Now that SHIELD no longer had a fleet of expensive quinjets at their service, getting places was more difficult and costly. "We've gotten word that a man named Brett McGuire is hiding out there. Lower ranking HYDRA agent but he still had contact with Pierce, Hoffman, Rusky—the big names in the country. Therefore, he needs to be brought in for information extraction." And by "information extraction" she meant _torture_. She paused and then said, "Though even if he were the lowest-ranking HYDRA agent who only ever cleaned their bathrooms, I'd still want him gone. I'd like to stamp each and every one of these nasty weasels out."

This was the kind of sass that had made Agent Bauer a living legend. She was definitely a colorful character.

"I'm sending you five in," she continued. "It's overkill, I know that, but we don't know who else is out there with him so better to storm in with the cavalry than slink in woefully unprepared. Sergeant Barnes, you're running point on this. Try to keep Madden out of the line of fire, she's one of the only medics we've got left and I'm too damn tired to find another one who won't turn out to be stinkin' traitorous rat."

"Yes, ma'am," Bucky murmured, hiding his smile by staring past Agent Bauer's head to the wall behind her.

"And Chang, you try to stay out of the line of fire as well," barked Agent Bauer. "You're a damn good hacker, I don't need you blown to bits."

Agent Eli Chang, a man with glossy black hair and an elfin, wicked smile grinned widely and said, "Yes, ma'am."

"We have a small private jet that'll be flying you to a chosen point in Oklahoma—I won't disclose the point right now—and you'll be driven by an agent in Oklahoma the rest of the way to McGuire's cabin or ranch or whatever the hell he's hiding in. Coordinates will be provided once you touch down. Now…you'll be taken to the jet; wheels up in thirty minutes."

Bucky noticed Agent Kaplan, a short man with short bristly dark hair, frowning and then said, "We're going to arrive during daylight hours…if we're driving up to his ranch, then he's going to s—"

"Yes, Kaplan, McGuire is going to see you coming from miles away," Agent Bauer said impatiently. "So be on your guard. What do you want me to say? You're SHIELD agents, you know how to handle yourselves. Go in easy or storm in hard, I don't care—just try not to kill yourselves and make sure to bring McGuire back with you. _Alive_. The man's no use to anyone dead, though believe me, I'd like him dead."

Agent Kaplan looked angry and embarrassed at being called out but he folded his hands behind his back and respectfully, grudgingly, said, "Yes, ma'am."

"Good," she barked. "Now get out. Fetch will take you to the jet, she's waiting outside."

They exited the office, shutting the door behind them, to meet a young woman waiting with her hands also folded behind her back. She wore all black, was as petite as Ari, and had short cropped blonde hair and a very young, innocent-looking face. Ari was twenty-four but this girl couldn't have been over the age of nineteen. "Team Beta?" she asked.

"Is that the name we have this time?" Bucky asked.

She smiled apologetically. "It appears so. I'm here to drive you to the jet. Follow me." She strode off and they all followed. They were used to this; it happened every time they had a mission that required them to take a jet. But they had never been escorted by someone as young as…

"_Fetch_?" Ari asked, hurrying to catch up to the blonde girl. "Not to be rude or anything—I'm just curious—is that your name?"

The girl rolled her eyes slightly but kept smiling. "That's what Agent Bauer calls me. I'm not a real SHIELD agent. I guess you could say I'm clearance Level .5, if anything. I run a lot of errands, do a lot of the driving around, a lot of the managerial and secretarial and grunt work. She said she didn't want to bother learning my name anyway so she started calling me Fetch—like a dog, you know?—and the nickname stuck."

"And you're okay with that?" Ari asked. "Do you want us to call you something else? Like your _real _name?" Ari was big on respecting peoples' names and what they wanted to be called; a holdover from her days as a full time nurse. She'd once told Bucky that some patients absolutely refused to see a nurse if they weren't addressed properly, even if their demands were somewhat ridiculous or confusing.

"Nah, it's fine, call me Fetch," Fetch said. "She doesn't mean any harm." She paused. "I think." They had entered the garage now and she ushered them all into a black Jeep, saying, "Weapons and suits will be on the jet." Being the one in charge of the mission—which was still a strange feeling to Bucky, sometimes, _giving _the orders instead of blindly receiving and following the orders—he sat in the passenger seat in case Fetch (he was going to have a really hard time calling her this) needed to tell him anything.

But she didn't. She drove in composed, professional silence, a pleasant smile on her face, the whole thirty minutes it took to arrive at an open field with a jet waiting for them. It was a small, gray jet that had clearly seen better days…but it was still better than _driving _all the way to the mission (which, indeed, was something they'd had to do once and Bucky preferred not to remember that fiasco). A man was leaning against the outside of the jet, smoking a cigarette and staring off into the distance. H straightened up when the Jeep pulled to a stop and quickly stomped out his cigarette, standing to attention. Team Beta (honestly, why was it named Team _Beta_? Bucky wondered. It seemed almost as if Agent Bauer had done it on purpose to humiliate them) piled out of the Jeep quickly and Fetch turned the Jeep around on the field and drove off without another word. She really _was_ very efficient. She'd gotten them here in minimal time, somehow bypassing all other traffic.

Bucky strode over to the man and curtly said, "Sergeant Barnes. This is Team Beta." He tried not to grimace on the word "beta." He wasn't used to being second best in anything. "And you are…?"

"Captain Lee," he replied with a noticeable twang. "Not an agent of SHIELD but I've worked with them for a long time. I'll be the one flying y'all out to Old Okie today."

"Are you from Texas?" Agent Chang asked, a wicked glint in his shiny dark eyes.

"Yes, I am," said Captain Lee. "How'd you know?"

"Oh, I dunno," said Agent Chang, his voice suddenly mysteriously adopting a bit of a Southwestern accent, "Y'all just sound so—"

"Enough," barked Bucky. "Everyone, in the plane. Are we prepped to go?" he asked Captain Lee, ignoring Agent Chang's biting look. Captain Lee nodded and Bucky said, "Alright, then we take off as soon as possible. Everyone get in and suit up. Now." _Why are you being such a jerk? _the withering, nasty voice in his head that he heard so often asked him. _This isn't the way to convince anyone you're a new man. _

_ I don't care_. He stiffly climbed up into the jet, ignoring the prickles of his conscious berating him for being so harsh on Agent Chang. He felt angry but he couldn't tell if he felt angry at the others for not seeming to take this mission seriously—or if he was angry at himself because of his inability to take a joke, his uptight behavior and harsh words. Had he handled that poorly? A part of him didn't really care either way. His job was to _complete the mission_, not mollycoddle his team members. But at the same time…he wasn't the Winter Soldier anymore. He couldn't treat the humans around him like disposable objects.

He suddenly felt someone's hand on his arm and he spun around to see Ari. She raised an eyebrow at his jerky movements but quietly said, "Soldier. Take it easy."

"He was—" Confusion and rage made Bucky unable to even speak for a moment and he raised his eyes skywards to try and figure out where his annoyance was coming from. "I didn't mean—"

"I know you didn't mean to bite his head off," said Ari, "but you did. In an emergency, I'd understand but that wasn't an emergency. He was just trying to lighten the mood."

"I know," Bucky said tightly.

"I'm saying this for you too, you know," she added, squeezing his arm. "You shouldn't be so on edge, it'll put you—and the rest of us—in jeopardy. Remember what Steve told you: stay on your guard but relaxed. As the Winter Soldier, you didn't have to deal with emotions. Now you do and they can trip you up unless you try to control your temper." He felt the familiar calming sensation that her presence seemed to bring. How could _one person _always say the right thing, always make someone feel so much better? It wasn't normal. He'd have to take Ari for a checkup at the doctor sometime (if he ever got over his fear of doctors, that is) to get her checked up. _Yes, Doctor, I think there's something wrong my friend here; she's always calm and rational and she never gets angry at me, yet she somehow manages to calmly reprimand me in the nicest way possible. Is this normal? _

"Ready to go?" called Captain Lee from the cockpit. Bucky himself knew how to pilot a jet—he knew how to do most anything in connection to combat and warfare—but ever since his first episode experiencing a day terror during a mission he hadn't been allowed to pilot any piece of aircraft. He strongly suspected Fury was purposely keeping him away from piloting a jet in the fear that he would have a day terror right in the middle of flying and kill everyone—but, for once, Bucky agreed with Fury. He couldn't control when his day terrors came on (though they _were _rare) and he didn't want to be responsible for the deaths of a whole team.

"Let's go," Bucky called. The jet engines rumbled and then flared to life and everyone strapped themselves to a seat on either side of the jet wall. This wasn't a normal airplane with seats in rows for normal passengers; the seats pressed against the walls so that the agents sat across from each other when buckled in. Agent Chang, Agent Kaplan, and the third agent (whose name was Agent Tate, Bucky had figured out) sat on one side and Ari and Bucky sat across from them. Bucky tried to ignore Agent Chang's pointed gaze as the jet raced across the well-worn field, picking up speed and then sharply angling as it took off into the air. Bucky took a moment to make the same prayer he always did when they took a jet anywhere: that the government didn't shoot them down. The government still tolerated SHIELD but just _barely _and Bucky knew it wouldn't take much for them to "accidentally" shoot down a largely-unofficial SHIELD jet under the guise that it was an unregistered aircraft in U.S. airspace. _That _was one threat that even Bucky couldn't defend himself—or the rest of the team—against and so it made him a little frightened.

Not that he would ever admit that to anyone except perhaps Ari. And probably even not her. He still tried to save face in front Ari when he could. Perhaps Steve…

Once the jet was safely in air, the team unbuckled themselves and began suiting up in the combat gear and weapons that had already been left in the jet, presumably by some efficient SHIELD lackey like Fetch. Or perhaps it had been Fetch herself who had left them here. Whoever it was, they had everyone's perfect sizes and preferred weapons and tools of choice, so Bucky had to admire the planning that had gone into this, considering that the mission had _just _come up. Despite being sorely underfunded and understaffed now, SHIELD still retained some vestige of professionalism.

Even while the rest of the world seemingly went to hell.

When Bucky looked at Ari, she looked a bit green and sick in the face as she twirled a dagger in her hand absentmindedly. "What's wrong?" he asked her in a low voice, keeping an eye on the dagger. It would be just like Ari to cut herself accidentally (though she'd be able to mend her own wound). It seemed a little too big for her and he remembered that he'd left the dagger he meant to give her back at home. "Airsick?" He'd never known her to be airsick before but there was always a first for everything…

"Just preparing myself," she muttered, taking a deep breath and looking a bit like she needed a paper back to breathe into. "Violence, killing, all that good stuff we do."

Bucky shifted awkward. He was always more okay with fighting and death than she was and it sometimes made him feel uncomfortable. It made him feel more callous, more cold, more robotic. Was Ari just exceptionally _human_? Or was he too emotionless? She brought out the best in him but sometimes he privately thought she also brought out the most Winter Soldier in him as well, as a contrast to her humanity. Steve tended to have the same effect on him as well. "Well…it _is _for good," he reminded her. "Or our intentions are anyway," he muttered, suddenly remember that, for decades, SHIELD had _thought _it was doing good when it had really been infiltrated by a poisonous organization. Even HYDRA had thought it was doing good while doing evil…

What if they were being manipulated in the same way, even now? The thought made Bucky want to shut down. He had had enough of lies, enough of fighting for people who didn't tell him the truth.

But right now there was a mission to finish. When Bucky received a mission, he had a one-track mind for it. Nothing else mattered except hunting down, and finishing, the mission. He'd deal with these existential and philosophical musings later, during his sleepless and tormented nights.

It normally took about two and a half hours, give or take, for flights to get from Washington D.C. to Oklahoma City—but not only was this SHIELD jet _not _going to any official Oklahoma City terminal, but it was also probably breaking some air traffic laws as it went. Bucky could tell that they were breaking the "speed limit" (so to speak) as they went but he didn't care either way. Whatever got them to Oklahoma and out of the air fastest. Being in the air was when he was most vulnerable and his fight with Steve on the helicarrier in D.C. hadn't helped make him any less nervous when flying now. In fact, he could even distantly remember that even as the Winter Soldier he'd been more tense when flying anywhere on a HYDRA jet, though those moments had been rare (he'd usually worked alone).

It took them exactly two hours to reach their landing site and they were a very silent and awkward two hours. SHIELD missions weren't exactly social parties but Bucky knew that his presence was dampening the mood slightly. It always did, on every mission he'd gone on in the past year. Either people were afraid of him, intimidated by him, resentful of him—or they just didn't know what to say around him. He wanted to let people know that they could talk about normal things, _be _normal, around him—he wasn't going to bite—but that wasn't exactly true, was it? He'd almost just bitten Chang's head off for no reason.

They encountered no problems and touched down in an empty field, no humans or buildings in sight for as far as the eye could see. The only thing that they could see, in fact, was a Jeep parked a few feet away. Captain Lee waved goodbye to them once they were all off and ready and then he slowly turned the jet around and took off, picking up speed racing through the fields and then suddenly sharply taking off. In a few moments the jet was a mere speck in the sky, racing back to Washington D.C. Bucky had noticed a faded and peeling "Stark Industries" painted onto the jet in red letters before it had left, barely distinguishable.

The team stood there for a moment, looking around them. There was really nothing to see—only ankle and calf-high golden-green grass faded and scorched by the summer sun and blue skies. It was peaceful, beautiful, and utterly—

"Boring," said Ari.

Bucky glanced at Ari and saw that her face screwed up with distaste. "You don't like it?" he asked. He didn't see what was not to like; true, it wasn't the most picturesque of scenery but it wasn't some trash-filled slum.

"I hate prairies," Ari grumbled. "Really not a field kind of girl. I like mountains, forests, stuff like that. Prairies feel so…exposed, don't they?"

Now that she worded it like that, Bucky suddenly did feel extremely exposed. Someone could see them coming from a mile away (though they'd see them as well). Someone flying overhead would easily be able to spot them—and drop something on them if they wanted. There was absolutely nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, not even one tree.

"Let's go," he called to the team, shrugging off his discomfort and walking towards the Jeep. Bauer had let them know that there would be an agent waiting to take them to McGuire's hideout—but as the team neared the Jeep, it became obvious that there was no one in the Jeep. Bucky saw Chang and Tate exchange nervous glances out of the corner of his eye and he was reminded of the fact that aside from Kaplan, he was surrounded by largely low-level agents who didn't exactly have nerves of steel. They'd be good in a fight but they were no Romanoff, no May, not even _Rumlow_, though he was HYDRA. Bucky was also hypersensitive of the fact that Chang and Ari were even more important to save—Ari as the medic, Chang as an expert hacker. He didn't even know why Bauer sent a hacker on the mission; perhaps there would be files to extract as well. Ari was also his friend but Bucky knew that as the leader of the team, he couldn't play favorites just because Ari was his friend in his personal life. If it came down to saving Ari and someone else…he'd have to make the tough choice and decide who was more valuable, more needed, more useful to him in the fight.

He wasn't sure if he'd make the right choice.

He wrenched open the driver's door of the Jeep in a vain attempt to perhaps see if the agent was, for some reason, crouching on the floor of the Jeep—but he knew deep down that there was no one here. In fact, it didn't look as if someone had been in a very long time.

"Where's the agent?" Tate demanded. "Someone was supposed to meet us here."

"Did something go wrong?" Kaplan asked, eyeing the Jeep uneasily.

"I think there was a struggle," Ari called. She had been slowly walking around the Jeep in a circle and now she knelt near the passenger side door and frowned at a few rusty brown droplets that had long dried by now. The entire team knelt around her to squint at the tiny spots—how the hell had she spotted those? Bucky knew the entire team was wondering—and she tapped a drop. It was flaky, loose—something that had been spilled _on _the Jeep, not an underside of the Jeep. "Blood," she pronounced somewhat ominously. Perhaps for theatrical effect.

"McGuire got to our agent," Tate said in a panic. "He somehow found out—"

"Don't be silly," Ari said, though her words were gentle; Bucky could see she was trying to calm down Tate, who looked like she might have a panic attack now. Bucky, for his part, was trying his very best not to roll his eyes. If a few droplets of old dried blood undid the man, then what would he do if he saw _real _blood? His _own _blood, if he was wounded? "This blood is really old," she explained. "Probably weeks old. There's no way McGuire could have known we were coming weeks ago—Agent Bauer just got tipped off about him _today_. I have no idea why the Jeep would have been driven out here weeks ago…" She frowned, thinking. "But obviously something happened to our agent."

"So what now?" Tate demanded.

"We keep going," Bucky announced, standing up and dusting his knees off. "We don't need an agent to take us to McGuire; Bauer said she'd supply coordinates in the car. I can get us there. We'll figure out what happened to the agent later; this blood is weeks old, we can't worry about someone who may have been dead for ages."

Kaplan winced a bit at Bucky's harsh words but carefully said, "Shouldn't we at least call it in?"

"Later," Bucky commanded. "We're losing valuable time right now. Like I said: McGuire's the main mission. Let's go." He climbed into the driver's seat. The keys were still in the ignition—another sign that something had gone horribly wrong; no one ever willingly left keys in the ignition—and turned the Jeep on. Thankfully it rumbled to life, not out of gas. Kaplan got into the passenger seat, being the second best shot—Bucky would need his skills if someone shot at them from the front—and the rest of the team clambered into the back. Once the Jeep was on, a small screen set into the front also blinked to life and a map appeared, like a simpler version of a GPS with a grid of coordinates set into the background rather than side streets and businesses and homes. Bucky found a slip of paper with coordinates written on it tucked into the dashboard and he entered it into the system. A red dot pinged to life and then the screen zoomed out to show a green dot many miles away with their coordinates written above it. The red dot was them, the green dot was McGuire.

Bucky set off, driving across the fields, and the team was silent, jostling up and down over the uneven ground. There was a sense of unease about them all, an air of foreboding. The missing agent was weighing heavily on everyone's minds, even though Bucky had ordered them to focus on the mission at hand. Even _Bucky _found himself wondering about the agent, wondering about the blood, wondering what had the hell had happened. Ari leaned forward and quietly said, "I don't know about you, but I've got a bad feeling about this trip. I don't know what it is—I can't explain it—but something feels off."

_Yes, it does_, Bucky thought to himself heavily. _Yes, it definitely does…_

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**A/N: Aaargh, sorry for the late update. Busy, busy, busy… New update of **_**The Original Three **_**coming up soon as well! Thanks for sticking with me, lovelies. **


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Do you guys want to know sort of how I picture Ari, or would that ruin it for you?**

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The drive took a while. Bucky had no idea where they were going but they had the coordinates to follow so he wasn't too concerned. What _did _concern him was the missing agent—but that was a problem that would be dealt with at a later time. For now they had to focus on finding McGuire and safely bringing him in. If he had been in contact with Hoffman, Pierce, and other big HYDRA members in the U.S., then he might still be in contact with big HYDRA leaders in other parts of the world. At the very least he would know secrets about HYDRA that could be valuable to them. Bucky had noticed that the world was getting a bit more chaotic, a bit more restless, ever since the fall of SHIELD. There simply weren't enough SHIELD members around the world to stop the criminals anymore. He'd heard hints that Tony Stark was developing something to help fight back but no one quite knew what it was. Stark had holed himself up in his Stark Tower after the destruction of his home in Malibu and he wasn't seen in the public eye quite so much anymore. He had, in Steve's words, "gone a bit funny." Bucky didn't particular care—Tony Stark was more annoying than amusing to him and they'd had very tense relations in the past that Bucky didn't care to dwell on—but if the man was developing something that would help them fight HYDRA, then Bucky wanted to know. He just wasn't sure how to ask. His relationship with Tony was fragile and faint, partly good-natured but there was bad blood between them, even if no one wanted to address it.

Bucky had killed Tony Stark's parents, Howard and Maria Stark.

He hadn't known what he was doing. He hadn't chosen to kill them. He hadn't even been aware killing was wrong—or that _right _and _wrong _were even concepts. And this was why Tony Stark hadn't outright killed Bucky yet (as well as the fact that if he harmed Bucky, Steve would break his honor-code and get merciless revenge upon Stark). But the fact was, it _had _been Bucky's hands that had led to the Starks' deaths and this was something no one could dance around. Bucky still remembered the first—and only—time he had met Tony Stark, a month after he had regained his memories. His arm had been hurting and Stark had flown out to see if he could take a look at Bucky's arm (he'd had business in Washington D.C. anyway). He'd been curious about who Bucky was as he examined his arm (Bucky had seen the man's eyes light up at the sight of new technology; despite his fancy suits and billions of dollars, the man was simply an inventor, a brilliant mechanic, at heart) and Steve had been unflinchingly honest. Of course, he'd waited till _after _Stark was done tinkering with Bucky's arm because Bucky had already been tense about sitting down in a chair and having someone mess around inside him (it reminded him too much of the HYDRA scientists who worked on him like he was a robot to fix) and because Stark's temper was the kind that led him to make impulsive decisions. But after Stark was done re-setting Bucky's arm, which had been damaged from all the fighting and weeks in the wilderness he had spent, Steve had slowly and carefully broken it to Stark who Bucky was, while Bucky watched with a tense gaze. Steve had made sure to explain that Bucky had never been in control, had not realized what he was doing nor chosen to do it.

He had seen how Stark stiffened, how his mouth flattened. How the man strode to the window and spent a good few minutes staring outside in silence, a hard set to his shoulders. Steve looked worried; from what Bucky had heard of Tony Stark, stony silence was _not _his mode of dealing with stress and anger—so this silence was out of the norm. Finally, Tony Stark had turned around and given Bucky a very hard look and had made a cold, short quip that Bucky couldn't remember now and then he had left, vanishing out the door. Bucky hadn't heard from him in some time and then, one day, out of the blue a gift basket from Stark Industries had arrived at his doorstep. He'd been cautious at first, testing the food to see if it was poisoned—but it wasn't. He never got an explanation for the gift basket. He couldn't tell if it was Stark letting him know he forgave Bucky…or if it was Stark trying to take the high road (or perhaps _forced _to take the high road; from what Bucky knew, Stark's girlfriend was a force of nature to be reckoned with)… He'd also received just a few phone calls from Stark that bordered on cheerful yet threatening. Either way, his relationship with Tony Stark was strange. No one knew about it except for Steve and Ari. Even Sam and Natasha weren't privy to it, though Natasha somehow probably knew. Natasha knew everything. A fact that greatly irritated Bucky.

While he mused on all this, the rest of the team dozed. He could see them struggling to stay alert at first—but after a few hours of simply driving across dead, dry grassland and rocky plains, he could tell they had rationalized with themselves that nothing was going to pop up out of the ground and attack them and most of them fell asleep. He thought it was somewhat negligent and stupid of them to fall asleep—a soldier never let his guard down on a mission, _ever_—but he knew they had less stamina than him and had been called in early in the morning.

Also, the drive _was_ boring.

Even Ari fell asleep, after muttering, "I hate this scenery," to herself.

And Bucky drove on, getting closer to McGuire's location with every passing minute. He eventually found his way to a country road and from there onto a highway but he eventually had to get off the highway, back onto some country roads, and then completely off the roads and into the Texan desert. The scenery changed; it became drier, more rocky and dusty and pale with straggly, spiky looking brush and bushes popping up through the dry cracked ground and rocky, geometric mountain-type things rising from the land every now and then. They had long left the road and were well and truly in the middle of nowhere. Bucky was good at surviving and he could survive out in the desert for a while if he had to, but the others would perish more quickly and it occurred to him (not for the first time) that if McGuire's location was fake, they'd be lost in the desert for a while.

He drove for the better part of the day and Team Beta began waking up as evening began to fall. It had taken longer than Bauer had estimated for them to get close. She'd made it sound like McGuire was living on the Texas border and they could easily drop by, pick him up, and make it back to SHIELD in time for dinner. It turned out that he was hiding somewhere deep in the desert. Not a bad place to hide, actually. Bucky wondered how Bauer had gotten her tip-off.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Ari asked, leaning forward. Bucky started a bit and then looked around. The sky was a mix of deep blue and violet with streaks of fiery gold and orange shot through it and the land looked shadowy and dark and deep blue, a startling inky contrast to the brilliant sky. The scene looked saturated in color. It was beautiful but Bucky would never have noticed it if Ari hadn't pointed it out. He didn't often notice things like these, things that other humans had been cultivated to seek out and admire. He noticed other things—things like exits and entrances, weak points, survival tools, kill spots. He'd noticed how the shadowy land gave them good cover if they drove with their headlights off—but they had to drive with their headlights on, lest they smash into a rock formation in the dark, and so they could be seen from a mile away. He'd also noticed how there weren't many places to hide for cover if they had to.

"Yeah," he said, glancing at Ari's face which was bathed in weak orange light from the setting sun. Her irises looked almost white in the strange lighting. "Beautiful."

Finally, they were close enough that he switched their headlights off and slowed down a bit, using his enhanced vision (he could see better at night than most people) to carefully navigate through the desert towards McGuire's location. "Get ready," he called to the team, who were tense and silent. "We're close." Forty minutes later, he silently pulled the Jeep to a stop and said, "Look at that."

Everyone leaned forward and squinted. In the distance was a ranch-style house, one story and long, built in the middle of nowhere. They were too far to see any details about it but Bucky would have bet that the house was very run-down. Small pinpricks of golden light shone through two of the windows, which seemed foolish to Bucky—but then, McGuire probably figured no one would ever find him out here. "There it is," he called to the team.

"How do you wanna do this, Searg?" Kaplan asked, reading his sniper rifle.

Bucky studied the house carefully for a moment, narrowing his eyes and watching the house. Still as a jaguar and just as dangerous. The Jeep was silent and dark as the team kept their eyes on him but let him do his thing. A feeling of danger, of an oncoming fight, was building in the car and Bucky knew the team was gearing up to do what they did best. "I don't see any sentries," he finally said. He had been checking for the tell-tale signs of guards patrolling the area or posted around the house and had noticed no movement. No one was that still—except for him. "We go in slowly, low to the ground. I want to know how many people are inside. Where are the infrared goggles?"

The infrared goggles were used on stealth night missions. They used thermal imagining by capturing the upper portion of infrared light spectrum, which was emitted through heat and showed up as different colors on the heat map spectrum. Human bodies emitted much more heat than a lifeless, dead landscape or house around them would and would glow in a different color (yellow or orange) than their background. The infrared goggles SHIELD had leftover were of the most powerful kind and Bucky knew he'd definitely be able to detect if there were other people inside McGuire's house.

He heard someone rifling around in the supplies in the back and after a moment— "They're not here," said Tate.

Bucky stiffened. He slowly turned around gave Tate a look that made the man wither slightly under Bucky's gaze. "Check again," Bucky said. "Madden, Chang, help him." Both Ari and Chang dove into the search, rifling through supplies and weapons in the back, in the bags around them. They spent a frantic few minutes simply digging and tossing out random supplies ("Ow!" hissed Kaplan as a heavy flashlight smacked into his shoulder. "Watch where you throw your shit!") and finally Ari looked up and helplessly said, "No goggles, Sol—Sergeant." She and Bucky tried to keep things professional while on missions because neither of them wanted to seem like they played favorites, though both of them knew deep down they very much so did. They both slipped up every now and then, betraying their friendship (which wasn't a secret to begin with) but Bucky knew they had to at least _try _to act like simply field agents when out on a mission. Nothing more. Nothing less.

He swore under his breath and then he swore again, out loud this time. No one in the team had packed infrared goggles—along with other bulky supplies—because they'd assumed they'd be supplied with them in the awaiting Jeep. The goggles were _supposed _to be in here. But then again…so was a SHIELD agent. And he was gone, along with the goggles. All he'd left behind was some dried blood. Had something happened to him that had prevented him from stocking goggles in the Jeep? Bucky could only assume so and his senses went on extreme alert.

"Alright," he said, adapting quickly. "We go in one by one. Timed three minutes apart. I go in first, then Tate, then Chang, then Madden, then Kaplan." He was keeping their second best agent last just in case someone needed help. It wasn't a good idea to send in all the best fighters in first, in case there was an ambush. He got out of the car, opened the trunk and yanked out two flare guns, tossing one to Tate. "Tate and I will be inside and we'll check the house, make sure it's all clear. If there are any problems, we'll shoot a flare up through the roof or out the window, so keep an eye out."

"And if there are problems?" Chang asked a bit cryptically, crossing his arms and staring at Bucky.

"Turn back and get out of here," Bucky said.

Kaplan stiffened. "Those aren't our orders," he said.

"Screw Bauer's damn orders," said Bucky. "Listen. Everything you've heard about me? It's true. So you can be damn well sure that if someone got the jump on _me_, you don't stand a chance in hell. If you see flares, head back and get the hell out of here. Get back to SHIELD and come back with reinforcements. We're no use to SHIELD if all of us are dead. Got it?" Kaplan was silent and stared at Bucky with a slightly mulish expression, as if he wanted to argue. "_Got _it?" Bucky repeated threateningly. "That's an order, agent."

"Fine," Kaplan replied tersely. He didn't like the plan but there was nothing he could do about it. Bucky wasn't too fond of it either—he didn't want to let McGuire get away—but if someone managed to trap _him_, he didn't want the rest of his team walking into the same trap. Not if it meant their deaths. Bucky was trying to avoid innocent deaths now. In his HYDRA days he would have thought nothing of leading a HYDRA team into certain death—after all, they'd made their own choice and he could care less if they lived or died as long as they completed the mission—but he wasn't HYDRA anymore. _Human lives matter_, he reminded himself. _People matter. _And it was his job, as the leader, to make sure his people continued living for as long as possible. Good people deserved to live.

Evil people, however, were a different story.

He got his gun ready and then headed out, moving quickly across the land and ducking low to avoid being seen (though if someone had glanced out the window at the right time, they'd easily see him; this part was pure chance and luck). He made it to the house and pressed himself against the wall. He signaled to Tate that he had gotten there, hoped Tate had gotten the signal, and then crept around the house, ducking beneath the windows and sticking to the walls. He slowly reached out and gently, slowly, turned the door knob of the first door he reached—and he swung open easily, silently. It was unlocked. His suspicions kicked in. Why was this door unlocked? Surely a man as paranoid as McGuire wouldn't leave his doors unlocked…unless his remote location had made him lazy and complacent in his security?

He stepped into the house, holding his gun at the ready and slowly, silently, began prowling around the house, looking for any signs of life. A few lights were on, throwing a bright golden glow throughout the rustic, ranch house which was furnished in a very bare, empty sort of way. A layer of dust covered everything and everything was neat and clean. He heard Tate enter the house below as he went upstairs and entered every room, swept them all completely clean. Every room had a bed and simple furniture with no belongings. Some clothes—dark colors, large sizes—hung in some of the wardrobes but they smelled stale, as if they hadn't been worn in a while. Bucky swept back downstairs to see Chang entering. Tate looked at Bucky and said, "All clear, but I'm going to sweep the cellar outside."

"Chang, back him up," said Bucky. Chang nodded and followed Tate outside. Bucky stood at a window and gazed outside thoughtfully. The lights from above made it hard to see into the darkness outside. It was clear no one had been here in a while—so why were the lights on? Or was someone still paying the electricity and keeping the lights on in the hopes the house would _look _inhabited? Why would anyone do that? And what kind of stupid tip off did Bauer receive? There was nothing to find here and presumably no other buildings for miles.

They'd come all this way for nothing.

Ari entered just as Tate and Chang reappeared, Tate saying, "All clear."

"What's going on?" Ari mouthed to Bucky.

"Wait," he mouthed back.

They waited for Kaplan to come in. A few minutes later he appeared from a back door, saying, "Thought I'd do a quick perimeter check—no around the house for a couple hundred yards."

"House and cellar are all clear," said Tate. "And the place looks dusty. No one's been here in ages. What now, Sergeant?"

Bucky suppressed a sigh. "Bauer got a bad tip-off. This place is empty. We're going back."

"So McGuire isn't here?" demanded Chang, looking suspiciously around the house. "Damn. We came to the middle of nowhere for nothing."

_Not nothing_, thought Bucky. _I'm going to tell Bauer to fire whoever gave her the tip-off._

Bucky suddenly heard something, his sharp ears pin-pricking: a fast-approaching rumbling noise, the kind of noise multiple engines made and then eerie sudden silence. He only had a split-second to yell, "DUCK!" and throw himself forward, tackling Ari to the floor before the walls, doors, and windows of the house blew in and exploded in a sudden storm of rapid gunfire. Dust and sand and smoke billow in, glass shards exploded inwards and blew everywhere, bits of the wall and the furniture ricocheted off everything and Bucky could only squeeze against the floor, holding Ari down, and try to hope the rest of his team had gotten down as well. He saw two bodies on the floor near him but through the dust clouds he couldn't tell if they'd ducked—or if they were dead.

A trap. They'd walked into a neatly made trap and fallen right for it, like stupid children going for a glossy candy in the middle of the road. But how…?

Bucky didn't have much time to think about it he heard rapidly approaching boots and feet from all directions, heavy and thundering, and then the gunfire stopped. He waited one split second and then he leaped to his feet, reading his gun and clicking the safety off. He heard Ari give a startled cry and he immediately pointed his gun in her direction, waiting for the dust and smoke to clear. He heard his team crying out, noises of shock and alarm, and grunts of other voices, voices he didn't recognize. The house around them was mostly destroyed.

The smoke cleared and the dust settled and he found himself surrounded by men wearing all black and armed to the teeth. Each one of his team was being roughly held by two men each and their weapons had been rested from their hands. They all also had guns pointed towards their heads by men standing further away. There were three men surrounding Bucky and pointing huge machine guns at him. His mind did some quick calculations; he could definitely overpower these idiots surrounding him—it would be child's play—and he could probably free one or two members of his team as well…but not the rest. Some of his people would die. And Tate was actually closest to him; he'd have to save him first and then Ari had a good chance of dying.

There was no way in hell Bucky was letting that happen.

"So sorry to do it this way." A man in an expensive black suit (albeit one that was covered in dust and debris now) stepped through his men and stood a few feet away from Bucky, his hands clasped behind his back. "I'm Brett McGuire. HYDRA." He cocked his head and looked at Bucky. Bucky remained silent, staring coldly at McGuire. He refused to play this game with him. McGuire had short bristly silver-blonde hair and very pale blue eyes, almost like cloudy ice chips. He held a cane in one hand and his gaze seemed sharp and blank all at once. It was like he was staring into Bucky but also right through him. It took Bucky a second to realize that McGuire was _blind_.

"Never mind," said McGuire, sounding disappointed. "I had a feeling you wouldn't play along. But you're the Winter Soldier. I admit, I'm curious to see what you _really _look like—but I can see enough. The defiant set of your shoulders. Your clenched fists. You have spirit, that much is totally clear! Please put your gun down, Winter Soldier, otherwise I'll be forced to shoot your people."

"But you're blind," Bucky said, startled. "How do you know my fists are—" He stopped himself.

"Ah, great question!" said McGuire and he sounded genuinely delighted. "Take a look, Soldier!" He opened his eyes wide and turned slightly on an angle. "Look into my eyes. What do you see?"

Bucky didn't want to do anything McGuire asked of him but he was too curious not to. He narrowed his eyes and peered at McGuire's pale eyes. Behind his irises, he saw a metallic glimmer, a silver ring that went around his irises… "HYDRA modified your eyes," he said, partly horrified but also partly numb. Why was he shocked? This was what HYDRA did, rip people apart and sloppily stitch them back together with senses and features they were never meant to have.

"Exactly," said McGuire. "HYDRA gave me the greatest gift anyone has ever given me: the gift of sight. Mind you, I can't see exactly as you all can—I see more blurry shapes and outlines in varying shades of black, gray, and white with a flew vague splotches of bright red and bright blue thrown in. Kind of like…hmmm…very messy x-ray vision. But it's better than nothing, right?"

McGuire's strange cheer was starting to sound seriously creepy. He was nothing like the other HYDRA members or leaders Bucky had ever encountered. They had always been overly-serious madmen. While he had no doubt McGuire was also a madman, he seemed slightly too chipper and polite. It was almost as if he genuinely liked talking to Bucky. A fact which did nothing to assuage Bucky's fears that McGuire was completely out of his mind.

"So what is all this?" Bucky spat. His eyes kept roving around the room constantly, looking for a way out, a way to take every single threat out without getting one of his team members hurt—and he couldn't see one. He'd killed Lewinski because there was no other choice but he wasn't about to voluntarily do something that would most certainly mean the death of one of his teammates…not unless the situation became _extremely _desperate. Right now it was only moderately desperate. Bucky had been in worse situations. "A trap? How did you even know we were co—"

Almost with an audible sound, it suddenly all clicked together in Bucky's mind. Neatly, easily, the pieces fell into place and he almost let out a groan at how obvious the plan was—and how stupid he had been. He should have suspected this the _moment _they realized the agent meant to drive them here was missing. He should have called Bauer right that very moment to confirm what he had just realized, because—

"The agent who gave Bauer the tip-off," he said slowly, "was the agent meant to drive us here."

"Very good," McGuire said, his eyes shining as if this were all one big game to him. In some ways, though more gentle and less overtly threatening than Gavin Hoffman had been, he was scarier than Hoffman. Because Bucky couldn't tell what McGuire's next move would be, whereas Hoffman had been an open book of spittle and spite and rage. "And…?"

Bucky closed his eyes for a moment, silently cursing himself for being so foolish, and then he opened them and snarled, "And that agent is HYDRA."

"Bingo, we have a winner!" McGuire cried. "Agent Avery, please step forward."

The men holding Chang and Tate in tight grips stepped aside to let a woman with curly dark hair shove past them and step into the small half-circle Bucky, McGuire, and the men training their guns on Bucky made. Tate and Kaplan all made noises of rage while Ari stared on in confusion. Chang, on his part, couldn't keep his mouth shut and spat, "Seriously, Avery? _HYDRA_? Damn, I knew you were a backstabber—don't think I've forgotten about what you did to Upton at the Academy—but I didn't know you were this much of a turn-coat!"

"Oh please, Eli," Avery said cavalierly, scornfully. "Don't be such a loser. We all have our parts to play. You're the typical Asian computer nerd who talks too much and who dies second to last—and I'm the one you guys never suspected."

"Traitor and a racist to boot," Ari said, her eyebrows rising. "Wow, I'd say I was impressed—but you're pretty disgusting."

"Who the hell are you?" Avery asked, surveying Ari with clear distaste. "I've never seen you before."

"Never mind the little lady," said McGuire. Bucky saw Ari grit her teeth at the patronizing term. "Tell the Winter Soldier how you laid this beautiful trap."

"I'm not known as the Winter Soldier anymore," Bucky broke in, speaking sharply.

"I know," McGuire said mildly. "But that's what I'm going to call you. You were HYDRA's crown gem, you know. Their greatest glory. And with the right persuasion… Well, that's for another time. Right now I'd like Avery to tell you just how she did it, since I'm sure it's driving you crazy."

Avery shrugged and said, "It's not really that cool," but her wide, smug smile betrayed her true feelings. She was feeling _very _pleased with herself. "But if you really want to know… It was pretty easy, actually. I just didn't out myself as HYDRA when SHIELD fell. A lot of us were outed right away or chose to out ourselves—but a lot of us chose to keep pretending to be SHIELD. We were interested in what happened next. Maybe our SHIELD covers could still be useful."

Bucky closed his eyes for a moment, just one moment. Avery was right—there was really no legitimate way to vet every person who claimed to be a SHIELD agent, even now. And there were still HYDRA moles. Everyone knew that…but they'd gotten sloppy. They'd assumed that the majority of those who said they worked for SHIELD now actually _were_ SHIELD. It had been a dangerous assumption to make, obviously.

"I was stationed here in Texas anyway," said Avery. "I've always been stationed here. We'd heard that the Winter Soldier was working for Bauer or whoever in D.C. now so I came up with a plan, weeks ago, actually."

It all suddenly slid into place in Bucky's quick brain. He could have almost—_almost_—smiled at the simple beauty of it. It really was such an easy, neat little trap, almost _too _simple…but it had worked like a charm, simply because they'd never expected a trap this basic. "Let me explain," he said, wanting to take Avery's smug glory away from her. "You planned this weeks ago so you drove the Jeep with the supplies and coordinates programmed in—purposefully, of course, to lead us to McGuire's 'hiding place'—to the regular meeting spot weeks ago as well. To save time? Because you're lazy?" He didn't wait for a reply and barreled on. "That's why the blood on the Jeep was old. You tried to make it look like there was a struggle but the blood was old. I was wondering about that. There was also a very thin layer of dust and dirt on the car. Poor planning on your part, but…" He shrugged, feeling the cold end of a gun poking into the back of his neck, mid-center. "We bought it, so I guess you count that as a victory. You called in a 'tip' to Bauer and pretended like you'd found where McGuire was hiding. She, of course, sent our team in right away. We followed the coordinates here and entered the house. Of course you guys were…" He thought for a few seconds and then it hit him. "The infrared goggles," he said quietly, almost marveling to himself. "They were missing from the Jeep. Right. You all were…off in the distance. Far enough that we couldn't see or hear you. Waiting in the darkness. _You _took the goggles for yourself and you all used them to watch for us entering the house. Once you saw all of our bodies were inside…you made your move."

Avery's cheeks were pink with anger and she snapped, "Why do you sound so disappointed?" Her fists were clenched and trembling.

Bucky knew he was winding her up. This was what he wanted. "The old blood," he said casually, not betraying any of the anger or fear that was building inside of him—anger at himself, anger at SHIELD, and fear over what was going to happen next. "The dust. The missing goggles. There were so many places where you messed up."

Avery's eyes widened as if she couldn't believe what he was saying and she looked incredulously around at her men, as if to say, _He's crazy, amiright? _"But you fell for it," she said, her words short and clipped and triumphant. "You fell for it anyway, so who're the real idiots?"

Bucky knew she was technically right. No matter what mistakes she had made, they…no, _he_…had fallen for them, which was all that mattered in a game of life and death. But he also knew that people with huge egos—whether "good" or "bad"—tended to trip-up and make mistakes when someone questioned or threatened their authority. That's when they launched into long-winded rants and soliloquies about their plans, whether nefarious or good-intentioned. And that was when they got distracted and made mistakes—that was when they were usually defeated. Bucky had never used this tactic before (he hadn't been the type of soldier to stand around and wait for someone to finish their rant; he was more the type to put a bullet through their temple and wash his hands of their nonsense) but he'd heard of other agents using it. So he was trying it now.

Unfortunately, it didn't really work. Had Avery been alone…well, had Avery been alone there wouldn't have even been _need _for this tactic. He could have incapacitated her in a split second. But they were surrounded and even if Avery was getting flustered and angry, no one else was—least of all McGuire, who was watching Bucky with amazed eyes, as if he were some sort of amazing treasure that had just been discovered.

"Well, that's all well and done with," McGuire said slowly. "I'm glad we've cleared the air on how you all were captured. Now I'd like to talk to you all. However…our current…" He hesitated and looked around at how all of Bucky's team was being held at gun-point with angry and sullen expressions bordering on panic and fear. Chang's forehead glistened with sweat and Ari, despite trying to look calm, was white as a sheet (which Bucky knew meant she was beyond upset) and looked rather like she might vomit (a year of going out into the field simply wasn't enough experience for her to ever be ready for being captured). "…_situation_ isn't very conducive to discussion," McGuire said. Bucky wondered why McGuire was keeping up this friendly ohoho-aren't-we-chummy façade but he didn't have any guesses. "So let's head downstairs, shall we?"

The house didn't have a basement. Bucky didn't say anything, merely looked at McGuire, eyes narrowed slightly, trying quickly to think of what McGuire meant. What could he possibly mean by—

"The cellar," Tate said suddenly, looking a bit frantic. "You're going to lock us in the cellar?!"

"Now, now," said McGuire. "No need to panic. We're all going down there. And if you all cooperate, there's no reason why you shouldn't emerge unscathed and well."

"And if we don't cooperate?" Tate asked, his chest rising and falling a little more quickly. Bucky couldn't help but feel disgust at the man's obvious and palpable fear. Ari, Chang, Tate…with the exception of Kaplan, Bauer really _had _stuck Bucky with all the newbies and weaklings, hadn't she? (No offense to Ari, of course…but there was no way around the fact that she was much less experienced than other agents.) Normally his strengths as the Winter Soldier would have made up for ten normal agents—but he hadn't expected an ambush. Stupid of him. His reflexes were getting slow. He made a private vow to himself that he would go on one of those weird zen hiking trips Sam was always suggesting where one wrestled with bears and pythons or whatever it was that kept the reflexes sharp. If he survived this, of course.

"Then you die," McGuire said. Simple. No veiled threats. "But we want to avoid that, right?" He motioned to the men behind Bucky and one of them shoved his gun forward into the area between Bucky's shoulder blades, making him stumble forward a step. Bucky resisted the urge to disarm the man and then rip his head off. If he did that, someone else would open fire and his team would die.

"Off to the cellar," McGuire ordered. "We have some things to discuss!"

It seemed that, for now, Team Beta was royally screwed.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Bless you guys for being patient. This is the hardest semester of my life so far… New chapter of **_**The Original Three **_**also coming up really soon! As always, I LOVE reviews. And did you guys see the official **_**Age of Ultron **_**teaser trailer?! Amazing! I seriously can't wait for this movie. **

* * *

McGuire's men marched Team Beta out of the house at gunpoint. There was a cellar built into the ground a few feet away from the house, the doors extended at an almost-horizontal slant about half a foot off the ground. Bucky's mind didn't stop roving, spinning, calculating. He had been this way as the Winter Soldier as well: he had never thought about human things—had never considered how beautiful the sky looked, had never cared for the welfare of anyone around him—but he'd definitely cared about tactical things. Always thinking about entrance routes, escape routes, weak points in buildings and people's bodies, best ways to extract information. He was doing the same now except his brain was working twice as hard because he _did _have the human aspect now; the urge to make sure he kept his team safe.

Bucky knew their chances weren't good. They were outnumbered to the point where even if he managed to quickly take out several of McGuire's men, _someone _on his team would likely be killed. He would never have admitted this out loud but had his team not included Ari, he might have even chanced the death of one of his team members. Death was an ugly but inevitable part of this life. But since Ari was here…he wasn't going to risk it. Ari, Steve, Sam—these were the kinds of people Bucky didn't want to put in danger from his own doing. If they put themselves at risk on their own, there was nothing he could do about that—but he certainly didn't want to be the one to get them killed.

Also, if he was being completely honest, he was darkly curious about what McGuire wanted to talk about. He was sure that it would be psychotic—these HYDRA leaders always were, no matter what their outward appearance belayed—but he still wanted to hear because he wanted the information. He wanted to know all the facts, all the variables that surrounded his life. That way it would be harder for him to be ambushed or tricked. He'd already make a mistake in letting go of the suspicious signs they'd encountered earlier; if he'd just tried to figure things out, then they might not be in this mess…

But they were. So Bucky was going to hear McGuire out while thinking of a way to get them all out of this mess alive.

One of McGuire's men flung open the cellar doors with a loud bang and Team Beta was roughly prodded with guns to get them moving down the stairs. They descended into the cellar, which was cool and smelled thickly of dust and dirt. In fact, Bucky almost tasted dirt and dust in his mouth when he opened it; the air was cottony and thick and _stale. _It was disgusting but he'd been in worse. He heard a faint yanking noise and then a dim yellow light bulb on the ceiling flickered to life, dully illuminating the cellar. It was quite large and had dusty, faded, and ripped cardboard boxes piled with junk stacked up against the grimy, dirty walls. The floor looked like a mixture of cement and cracked, baked dirt. Seven rusty metal gurneys lay in the middle of the room and something twisted painfully inside Bucky's stomach.

_Laying on a cold, hard metal surface… His forehead and whole body felt sticky and hot and cold all at once. He blinked the fogginess and sweat out of his eyes. His mouth was dry and cottony, dried spit on his chin and cheek. He tried to lift his right hand to rub at his face and realized it was locked to his side, the cold of the cuff cutting painfully into his wrist. He could see blurry shapes moving around but the light overhead hurt his eyes and he closed them, tried desperately to lift his right hand. He couldn't manage more than a weak jerk; his whole body felt sore and slow as molasses, as if he had been hit with a battering ram several times over. He tried to life his left arm and—_

_ He couldn't feel anything. _

_ What? _

_ Something was wrong. His head spun and pain washed over his body in throbbing waves but—something else was wrong—_

_ Something cold and hard held his neck to the table he was strapped to but he managed to lift his head an inch and turn to look at his left arm. _

_ It wasn't there. _

_ It—_

_ A hysterical scream built up in his chest as he blinked, mouth open, staring in horror and shock at…the space where his arm was supposed to be. His shoulder was just a stump covered in white gauzy bandages and stained with blood and—_

_ WHERE WAS HIS ARM?_

_ He tried to scream but his voice wasn't strong enough so he began to weakly cry, hoarse and muffled shrieks and sobs, tearing at his chest. Tears mixing with sweat on his face. The fear and pain and confusion—he didn't understand what kind of nightmare he was trapped in—the last thing he remembered was Steve's face screwed up in a silent yell—_

Memories didn't hit Bucky now like they used to before he got most of his memories back. They didn't smack into his mind like a snapped rubber band. He could anticipate them, they weren't a massive shock…but they still hurt him. His mind always throbbed after experiencing a particularly clear flashback, especially one that had to do with HYDRA and what they had done to him. He touched his throbbing head for a second as Ari shot him a concerned look and then McGuire said, "On the gurneys, please."

"Are—is this a joke?" Chang demanded. "You can't be serious! This isn't a _Saw _movie!"

"Shut up!" Tate hissed, his face pale. "Don't give him ideas!"

McGuire's pale silvery eyes rolled slightly, as if he couldn't believe the stupidity of the team before him. Bucky almost couldn't blame him. These guys weren't the most professional agents he'd ever worked with: young, emotional, reckless. Except for Kaplan, who had been silent and stoic so far and was scanning the cellar. His mind was on the same tracks as Bucky's, Bucky could tell; he was looking for an escape. For just a moment Bucky missed Agent Lewinski. She'd been a useful asset in moments of urgency, all professional control and precise movements. "No, this is no joke. Just get on the gurneys, please. This is just a security measure—I'm not planning on torturing you yet."

Everyone went still at the use of the word "yet" and Tate began silently mouthing something to himself. Probably a prayer or something equally useless in this situation. They didn't have a choice, so they all climbed into a gurney and lay down on them. Ari was right next to Bucky, who was at the far right end. McGuire's guards went around strapping them all down. Allowing the man to strap down Ari and then himself without ripping the man's larynx out was one of the most difficult things Bucky was sure he'd ever had to do; his fingers itched and trembled with the urge to violently kill every single person in the room who wasn't a part of Team Beta. He couldn't believe HYDRA had somehow gotten him strapped back to a gurney. A strange burning sensation rose up in his gut. Bile. He had never felt so humiliated in his life, not even when Ari had bathed him. He struggled to control his breathing and focus on the present and not dark memories of the previous times he'd been strapped to a gurney. Luckily this cellar was nothing like HYDRA's state-of-the-art facilities and he was only strapped down with thin black bands. Many of them, sure, but they were nothing he couldn't use brute strength to snap through if he really wanted to. In fact, he could easily have killed any man who even _tried _to tie him down. He was _letting _them tie him down…letting them get off their guard.

He just needed to hear McGuire out first before he made his move. And if this was the only way to do it—then so be it. He would pretend to be strapped down and hear McGuire out if it kept his team safe.

One of McGuire's men went around and patted them all down, wresting any remaining hidden weapons from their persons. When McGuire was satisfied that all the members of Team Beta had been strapped down and disarmed, he began to speak.

"Now, you're probably wondering why I'm going to these lengths," he said. "Well, it's simple. I have no dastardly master plan. I just don't want any of you getting any funny ideas and trying to attack me! You might call me 'the bad guy' but I really would like to avoid unnecessary bloodshed."

"You want to avoid bloodshed and yet you're a part of HYDRA," Ari said coldly, staring up at the ceiling, arms pinned to her sides. "What did you think Project Insight was going to do? _Cuddle _people to death?"

Bucky was suddenly afraid for Ari. When she became impassioned, she could be somewhat reckless. He didn't want her getting herself killed because she was mouthing off but he had no way of warning her without letting on that he cared about her. He knew that was the one thing he had to avoid most: showing any favoritism in front of McGuire. That would be revealing his weakness. Bucky didn't have many weaknesses but the few people he cared about…_they _were his weaknesses.

McGuire shrugged, thankfully not taking offense at Ari's rude tone. "You're right. Did I personally come up with that plan or particularly agree with it? No. I don't actually really care about world domination. But I do care about winning and staying on top—and HYDRA seems like the winner to me. Then there's also the teeny, tiny matter of HYDRA giving me my eyesight—thus cementing my loyalty to them…for as long as they seem like the winning team. My gratitude doesn't extend to them if they become the losing team."

"Haven't you ever read any stories?" Ari asked. "Good always wins in the end."

"Those are stories, my dear," McGuire said, "not reality. In my experience, good wins—but at great costs. Evil, on the other hand, wins at _no _cost because…well, we're willing to cross any boundaries." He shrugged again. "So I'll take on the cloak of 'evil' and HYDRA if it means I get to win without losing anything I care about."

"Which is what?" Bucky asked harshly.

"Money," said McGuire.

Silence blanketed the room. Bucky didn't glance over to see how his teammates looked but he could only image they had varying expressions of shock and surprise on their faces. Of course, it was a well-known fact that "bad guys" were often motivated by money…but rarely did any wrongdoer ever actually _admit _that. It simply made them seem too basic, to use modern day terms. The fact that McGuire had simply admitted what he really wanted instead of dancing around with slippery words and metaphors almost made Bucky respect him.

Almost.

"Are you surprised?" McGuire asked to the room at large, correctly interpreting everyone's silence. "I know. Most 'evildoers' always have some pretty speech about world domination and 'for the greater good', right? I don't. I've already told you: I don't care about those things, personally. I follow HYDRA because HYDRA is powerful and they helped me—and if world domination is what'll get me to my goals, then I accept that."

_He's insane_, Bucky realized with a start. _He's absolutely insane. He's willing to let the world burn just to get what he wants. He doesn't even harbor any delusions about "saving people"—he doesn't even care about pretending to have good intentions. _

_ This man may be more dangerous than Pierce or Hoffman… _

"So what do we have to do with that?" Kaplan demanded from the other side of the cellar, his voice tense.

"You?" McGuire asked, sounding surprised. "Nothing. It's only your bad luck that the rest of you stumbled into this. Who I'm interested in is the Winter Soldier."

"We don't call him that," Kaplan said sharply and Bucky felt a momentary pang of gratitude towards Kaplan, a man he wasn't particularly wasn't close to but was defending him nonetheless.

"I know, I know, you can spare me that whole _He's a new man _speech," said McGuire. He walked over to Bucky's gurney and looked down at him with his eerie blank eyes. Bucky stared up straight into his eyes with as cold and dead eyes as he could muster. And he knew he could look _very _cold and dead when he wanted to. A part of him would always be frozen and decaying and it only took moments to tap into that part of him. Was there a term for necrosis of the soul? Because if there was, Bucky would have been diagnosed with it.

"I know you're not a new man," McGuire said softly, reaching out tentatively—as if he were afraid Bucky would rip his arm off (which, to be fair, Bucky could easily do if he so chose to) though it was probably because he couldn't see very well—and touching Bucky's shoulder. His human shoulder. McGuire's grip seemed cold and Bucky imagined he could almost feel it through his armor, even though that couldn't be possible. Something about his touch felt cold and prickly, like frost was growing up on Bucky's shoulder and neck, giving him frostbite. "You can sing that song and tell that tale to whoever you want. In fact, you probably even believe it yourself. But we both know, deep down, that's not true. You're just always _suppressing _it, aren't you?"

Bucky tried his hardest to block out McGuire's words. He tried his hardest to plan out an escape route without getting Team Beta killed. But his mind kept slipping away from him and his brain filled with images of ripping McGuire apart limb from limb. And when the Winter Soldier said "limb from limb", he quite _literally _meant limb from actual limb, skin and muscle and bones and blood in piles on the floor. His mouth filled with a coppery, electric taste and it felt like his mind was making strange clicking, grinding noises that were amplified and echoed by his cybernetic arm. His mind was a mechanical, dark place and he could feel himself slipping into the Winter Soldier. Accomplishing the mission at all costs. The mission was McGuire.

McGuire was right. He _was _always suppressing it.

"You might want to be careful," came a voice from behind McGuire. A high-pitched voice, a female's voice…Ari. _Ari's _voice. Ari's voice jolted Bucky from his temporary slip back into the depths of the Winter Soldier's mind and made him re-focus, blinking. "You seem awfully eager to make Soldier become the Winter Soldier again. But I don't think you know what you're getting yourself into. Do you think he's some sort of pet that can be controlled? The only reason HYDRA could control was him was because they had mind controlling and brain washing techniques."

McGuire let go of Bucky's shoulder and slowly turned around to look down at Ari.

"But you don't have those techniques," Ari said quietly. "Do you think you'd be able to control him? The Winter Soldier minus his brain washing isn't someone you want to encounter."

"You sound like you know from personal experience," McGuire said in a slightly odd tone, a calculating note creeping into his voice.

_Shit. She's going to give herself away_. While Bucky quickly thought about how to interrupt to stop Ari from letting on that she knew him, she spoke first and said, "I don't. I've done my research, though. When you let a monster lead your team, you want to know what you're up against." Her voice was cold.

Bucky could suddenly hear the pounding of his heart in his ears and the bloody taste in his mouth increased. Monster. A monster. _When you let a monster lead your team, you want to know what you're up against. _He knew that, somewhere deep inside, the word should have been hurting him. But he didn't feel hurt. Part of it may have been the fact that he knew Ari was purposefully saying cruel things to throw McGuire off the fact that she was friends with him…but a part of it may have been that he agreed with Ari's words. He'd thought he was under control, back when he'd gotten his memories back, but recently with these day terrors and nightmares…well, Bucky wasn't sure if he was fully human yet. He wanted to be but he was becoming frightened with his own behavior.

"Be as that may be," McGuire said carefully, "I need the Winter Soldier. Pierce and Hoffman are gone—and oh yes, I know what happened to Hoffman! Caused quite a scandal within HYDRA, you can imagine; the Winter Soldier turning on his masters and throwing one off the _roof_!—but there are others out there and they want the Winter Soldier. Whether to retrain as a weapon or with a bounty on his head…I don't know, nor do I care. All I know is that if I show up towing him alongside me, I'll be rewarded _and _cemented a much higher status in HYDRA. And then I'll get what I want."

His proclamation was met by silence again. McGuire took the opportunity to say, "So, Winter Soldier…you can think it over now. Come with us willingly and I'll let your team go back home scot free. What do I care if they leave? They can't track us down and it'll do SHIELD—or whatever's left of you idiots—good to know that the Winter Soldier has deferred again. But force my hand…and you will still come with me but your team will die in the process." McGuire paused and said, as if this had just occurred to me, "Of course, you may not actually _care _about your team—after all, I don't think robots can care—and in that case, just give me the signal and we'll kill the team and you can come with us willingly."

And with that, McGuire turned and left, commanding his men to stay in the cellar and watch the team. "I'll be in the house waiting," he said. "Come to me when the Winter Soldier decides. Give him time. I'm in no hurry." The cellar doors opened, letting in a rush of cool desert night air and then they slammed shut again with so much force that the cellar ceiling shook a little, dirt and dust floating down upon them.

And then there was silence for a long time. McGuire's men and Avery leaned against the walls and watched the team, who lay silently, not daring to say anything out loud. McGuire's men were spread out and pointing their guns at the team. Avery, for her part, looked bored now that her moment of glory was over and she stood far away from McGuire's men, who were giving her furtive looks. It was clear they didn't trust her. If Bucky made a move, he didn't think he'd get through every man before shots were fired. His team was strapped down with no access to any weapons and they couldn't even form a plan because McGuire's men would hear every single thing they said.

This was a bad situation.

Bucky didn't know how long they all stayed there in frozen silence but it was long enough that McGuire's men began to yawn and grumble. "Come _on_," one of them snarled, walking over to Bucky and jabbing him sharply in his ribs. Bucky didn't even wince. It didn't hurt. "Decide already! I want to get out of this goddamn desert. Texas is boring as hell."

"McGuire's nuts," one of the men said darkly. "Why is he giving him a choice? Just shoot the team and get out of here already! Jesus Christ…"

"I can't believe _you're _the Winter Soldier," said the man who had jabbed Bucky, squinting down at him. "You don't look like the world's most dangerous assassin. Are you sure you're the Winter Soldier?"

"He'll look like the Winter Soldier when he's ripping out your eyeballs," Chang muttered darkly.

"Shut up!" barked one of the man and slammed the butt of his gun down on Chang's head. Chang let out a stifled groan of pain and fell silent. Bucky wondered if Chang had been knocked unconscious and his temper flared bright and hot like the sun. This was _his _team they were messing with. They were mostly idiots, mostly inexperienced, but they were _his _inexperienced idiots and he was in charge of keeping them safe. And so far, Kaplan and Chang had both defended him in their own ways. Bucky realized they were still counting on him to get them out of this mess.

They weren't counting on Bucky Barnes. They were counting on the _Winter Soldier_.

Right then and there Bucky decided he had had enough. He didn't want anyone on his team to die but it was time to take action. The best he could do was hope that Team Beta came through unscathed. _Just _as he decided to snap through his straps and snap the neck of the HYDRA agent staring down at him, one of the men yawned and said, "I could go for some coffee. I'm tired as shit."

"Yeah, I want coffee too," said another man. "There's some inside the kitchen in the house. Go get some, Johnson."

"Go screw yourself," snapped the man who was presumably named Johnson. "I'm not your bitch. Do your own dirty work."

"Make one of the hostages get the coffee," sniggered one of the men.

What happened next was something Bucky was glad he witnessed because he would take inspiration from it for years to come. It happened by chance, too. He had been staring at the ceiling this whole time and he just _happened _to glance in Ari's direction—only to stare in shock as Ari began to do something very strange. She had been staring at the ceiling with a glassy expression but as the men spoke about wanting coffee, she suddenly struggled against her straps to turn on her sides and began to loudly sob. Bucky's brows furrowed. Ari was tougher than this…what was going on with her? He watched her closely and noticed something interesting: while she was sobbing loudly, there was no evidence of tears on her face. Her sobs also sounded more girlish than usual. Not that Ari was manly by any means—she was quite feminine. But her sobs sounded positively lady-like and hysterical now and Bucky couldn't for the life of him comprehend what she was doing.

"Shut up, bitch!" one of the men said, walking over and slapping her on the head. This made Ari cry even harder and she sobbed out, "I just w-want to go h-home! Please let me go! I can't do this!"

"_She's _a SHIELD agent?" Johnson asked, his lip curling downwards in disgust. "I knew SHIELD was full of idiots but damn, their standards have seriously gone down. This is why I always say women can't be in the field. Bunch of soft dolls, the whole lot of them." Bucky glanced at Avery and saw that her face had gone red with rage but she remained silent, possibly because she was outnumbered.

"Even Black Widow?" one of men asked slyly.

"Please," scoffed Johnson in an attempt at macho bravado. "I'd destroy that—" and then he called Natasha a few choice words specifically meant for insulting women.

Bucky would have given his other good arm to see this Johnson try to take on Natasha. Natasha would smoke the remains of this man through a pipe and paint her nails with his blood when she was through with him. Bucky didn't particularly like Natasha in terms of personality—she didn't exactly trust him and he knew she could be dangerous to him—but he respected her fighting skills and talent. There was a reason the Widow was an Avenger.

"Hey, I have an idea!" one of them said excitedly. "Make the girl go get us coffee! She can make us some sandwiches while she's at it." They all chuckled and Bucky could have sworn he saw Ari roll her eyes in between fits of hysterical crying but it happened so quickly that he couldn't be sure.

"I don't know…" said the one standing next to Bucky, uncertainty flitting across his face. "She may be a chick but she's still a SHIELD agent. What if she tries something?"

"Oh, grow some balls, Gomez," scoffed Johnson. "She doesn't have weapons and—_look _at her. What does she weigh, like a hundred pounds? What the hell is she going to do? Here, I'll escort the little miss inside if that makes you feel better. She can make us our coffee and I'll escort her back. Happy?"

"Fine," Gomez relented, clearly tempted by the offer of coffee.

Bucky watched with narrowed eyes as Johnson untied Ari and roughly hauled her up, shoving her towards the door, gun held loosely in his arm. He clearly didn't see Ari as a threat. Unfortunately, Bucky didn't either. Ari wasn't a half-bad fighter now and she could take down someone near her size but Johnson was enormous _and _he had a weapon. What was Ari going to do?

The cellar doors slammed open and then shut. Silence fell again and Bucky's mind began racing. Ari was out of the cellar now. She was in the clear (if being escorted by Johnson could be called being in the clear). If he made a move now and gunfire broke out…she would be spared. This was definitely a bonus, since Ari was the one he was most worried about.

But…what guarantee did he have that Johnson wouldn't hear the gunfire and kill Ari on the spot inside the house? No guarantee at all. And if he, Bucky, happened to somehow get shot…then his team would be on their own and McGuire—despite saying that he didn't care for bloodshed—would most certainly slaughter them in a brutal way to get revenge for his precious asset being wasted. Bucky didn't care what McGuire said about not liking violence; McGuire was a psychopath (or was it sociopath? Bucky had no idea what the term was these days) and Bucky didn't trust one word that came out of his mouth.

_Focus on the moment_, his mind whispered to him. _Think. Ari's up to something. She's a smart girl. What is she doing? Figure it out. _

He strained his mind and tried to think about the various things Ari could be plotting—but try as he might, he couldn't think of anything. Getting into Ari's head was hard for him sometimes because he never quite knew what she would say or do next. Could she be stupid enough to think she could jump Johnson by herself…?

Nope. He couldn't do it. He couldn't understand what was going on and this frustrated him beyond belief.

Time seemed to tick by in increments as slow as molasses. Bucky felt like he had aged another seventy plus years by the time the cellar door slammed open and Ari descended down the stairs, holding a tray full of a random assortment of mugs and a plate of cookies. The smell of sharp coffee filled the stale, dusty, stifling air. "Sorry, boys," said Johnson, following her and barring the cellar doors again. "Stale cookies were all she found. But it's better than nothing." He shoved Ari towards her gurney and strapped her down again. Then he and the other men crowded around the tray, gulping down the coffee and shoving their face full of cookies. Bucky watched in disgust. They had the table manners of wild animals. Just because someone was evil didn't mean they had to eat rudely. Even Avery drank a cup of coffee, slowly walking over and grabbing a mug, sipping it with more manners than the men. They ignored her completely. Bucky wondered if she regretting falling in with this crowd who would always treat her like a second-class citizen. What lure could HYDRA have held for her?

After they were done, they all leaned against the wall again and began conversing about things Bucky didn't care about, clearly energetic after re-fueling with the sugar and caffeine. But something strange began to happen: instead of getting livelier, as should have happened after drinking black coffee, they began to get quieter. Bucky lifted his head slightly to watch them and saw that their eyes were closing and they were yawning and sliding down the wall to the floor. Johnson only had time to say, "Wawazzindacuffee," before collapsing completely.

And then every single man was down and out. It had taken fifteen minutes. Avery had dropped like a stone as well.

"What," came Tate's voice, "the _hell_ just happened?"

"Ari happened," Bucky said, ripping through his straps ferociously in a second and swinging to his feet, kicking the gurney away from him so hard it crashed into the wall behind him and bent slightly. If he went a thousand years before getting on a gurney again, it would still be too soon. He quickly freed his team and they all got to their feet, wobbling slightly on shaky legs and wincing, rubbing their foreheads. Chang staggered forward and nearly tripped over his feet, slamming into Tate's gurney and catching himself just in time.

"Watch out, guys," Ari said. "You've been laying down straight for a few hours. You're going to have a sudden drop in blood pressure and you'll feel dizzy. Take a few breaths and relax for a few moments."

Bucky didn't feel any dizziness but he knew he wouldn't. His biology was superior to theirs thanks to the twisted serum he had received. He folded his arms and let his team get their bearings for a few minutes. Then he turned to Ari and said, "Explain."

Ari smiled grimly and Bucky stored the image of her dark smile away in his memory to reexamine later when he had time. Whenever Ari did something new and surprising, he tried to commit it to memory. Ari would have said he was just trying to build new memories as Bucky Barnes but he had no idea what motivated him to do this.

"Once they got started talking about coffee, I knew I had a chance," she said. "So I started fake crying like some weakling. I knew they'd think I was stupid and weak I and I guessed—or I _hoped_—that there was a good chance they'd force me to get some coffee or food or something. And my plan worked like a charm. Can you believe those morons? Johnson led me to the kitchen and he didn't even _watch _me while I made coffee! Which was why I was able to slip _these _into the coffee." She fished in her pocket and pulled out a tiny Ziploc bag filled with tiny clear gel pills.

"These are prescription sleeping pills," she said. "They work incredibly fast and they're crazy-strong. Normal people with sleeping issues would _never _get these; these would be for, like, extreme insomniacs who haven't slept in days and are going delirious from a lack of sleep. Or if you need to knock someone out before a surgery. I guess they're like extra-strength anesthetics, in a way. Yeah, that's a better way of looking at them… But anyway, they knock people out and they do it fast. They also dissolve in liquids. So…there it is. Johnson didn't even see me pour them into their coffee."

"I can't believe those idiots didn't even realize you had those in your pocket," Chang said faintly in awe, staring at the bag in Ari's hand. Bucky noticed that he had a large bloody welt on his forehead.

"Well, I'm just a stupid woman, remember?" Ari asked harshly, smiling in a hard way. "They probably didn't expect I could be capable of this."

"Remind me to never cross a woman," Chang said mildly. "Like, ever."

"Right, so what do we do with these guys?" Kaplan asked, getting them back on track. He kicked one of the men on the floor on the head, probably harder than he needed to, but no one protested.

Bucky rifled through their pile of weapons that had been left by the door and pulled out his handgun. "This," he said, clicking the safety off.

"Or," Ari said sharply, "we could just leave them. They didn't do anything to us that warrants a bullet to the brain."

"They're HYDRA," Bucky snapped.

"So were you, once," she said in a pointed tone. For a moment, she and Bucky glared at each other, stuck at an impasse, while the rest of the team looked on nervously. Bucky knew she was right, deep down; he was a new man and he was best friends with Steve Rogers and Steve Rogers would have shown mercy. After all, these men hadn't _really _hurt them and they were sleeping. Defenseless. Bucky Barnes did not attack defenseless people.

But the Winter Soldier did. And a part of him realized that this was Ari's natural—and foolish—compassion coming through again. These men would have killed them had they gotten the chance. There was no doubt about that. They were HYDRA. They had doubtless killed numerous other innocent people. They might have been complicit in Bucky's torture and brainwashing. Bucky also didn't like how Ari questioned his authority in front of the team he was leading. A good soldier didn't question his general in front of the entire division.

_He would if the general was wrong_, a voice inside his head whispered. _Steve defied his general and snuck off to save _you.

He slowly lowered his gun and began strapping himself up with his weapons, tossing weapons back to his team. "We'll leave them down here," he ordered, "and lock the cellar doors so they can't get out. That way we're not responsible for their deaths. Not directly." Bucky stood back while his team gathered their supplies and he quickly jammed his knife into Avery's throat, making sure she bled out silently. He didn't intend to let anyone from HYDRA leave this room but he also didn't want to condemn Avery to assault and violation during her last hours. Men could become depraved creatures when they realized there was no hope left. None of his team even noticed him quickly and silently kill Avery. They filed out of the cellar and Bucky stood back and watched while Chang and Tate and Ari brought up lengths of heavy chain and began locking the cellar doors as tightly closed shut as they could with an inhibited amount of glee. When they were done, the doors were covered in so many chains that Bucky would be surprised if anyone passing by would be able to tell there were _doors _underneath them.

"Isn't this kind of cruel?" Tate asked, staring down at the door. "They'll slowly starve to death."

"I hope they eat each other," Chang said maliciously.

"They'll find a way out if they want to," Bucky said grimly, knowing there was no way they would find a way out. Those men were as good as dead. And now it was time to make sure McGuire received the same fate.

"Stay outside," he told his team. "I can handle this." He turned and strode into the house, quietly stepping inside and shutting the door.

"What, back for more coffee?" came McGuire's bored voice from the family room. "Has the Winter Soldier made his decision yet?"

Bucky silently stalked into the family room where McGuire sat reading a book on a sagging armchair, his back to Bucky. Bucky silently stood behind McGuire for a moment, observing the back of McGuire's head. He wondered if it was wrong of him to creep up on a mostly-blind man. Then he decided he didn't really give a damn and said, "He has."

McGuire's head whipped around, his eyes wildly roving to see where Bucky stood. He made a move for a gun on the table beside him but he was no match for Bucky Barnes. Bucky swung his gun the way one would swing a baseball bat and smashed it into McGuire's head. McGuire went flying backwards and hit the floor hard, immediately knocked out cold. Bucky stepped over to him and nudged McGuire's motionless body with his foot. He was well and truly out.

"Soldier?"

Bucky's head snapped up to see Ari standing in the entrance, her gun held in both hands the way soldiers held their guns, a wary expression on her face. "Good, he's knocked out," she said, eyes flicking nervously to McGuire's still form. "Let's go."

"Are you insane?" Bucky asked. He clicked the safety on his gun off and pointed it at McGuire's head. "I may have let the others go but I'm not letting him go. He's a HYDRA leader. I don't care how major or minor—he goes."

"Just leave him!" Ari said, her face taut with tension. "You can't kill a man who's been knocked out! We'll probably never meet him again—"

"God, do you think that _matters_, Ari?" Bucky asked in frustration, roughly gesturing his gun in McGuire's direction. "Does it matter if we run across him again? You know what he is! He wasn't ashamed of who he is at all! If we let him go, who knows how many people he'll hurt?"

"Or there's a chance he might change!" Ari said desperately. "He might—wake up and realize you had mercy on him and that might be _all it takes _for him to change. I want to stop HYDRA, I do, Soldier, but killing everyone in our path is only going to eradicate HYDRA for the _time being_. We've had years of war, don't you think it's time to do something different?"

"We'll do something different another day," Bucky snapped. "Not today."

"Where would you be if Steve hadn't given you a chance?" she asked angrily. "He took mercy on you—no, don't deny it!" she said when Bucky began to shake his head. "He could have beaten you on that helicarrier—you know that! But he didn't, despite all the people you killed as the Winter Soldier!"

"I was brainwashed, in case you forgot," Bucky said, feeling like he had been punched in the gut, staring at Ari. "Are you—are you _seriously _comparing me to this monster?" He jabbed his gun in McGuire's direction.

"No!" Ari cried. "I'm not! You're nothing like him! It's just—God! Fine!" She clutched her forehead and paced in a circle, looking like she was trapped in a cage. "I just don't want you to keep killing! Steve never kills unless he absolutely _has _to and even then, he manages to find a way to bring people into the authorities' custody. I want—I want you to be like that! I don't think killing people is good for you! That's what the Winter Soldier did! Shooting people left and right…you're _never _going to get better like that! You're never going to stop having nightmares if you keep killing so much!"

"How did you know about that?" Bucky whispered, stunned. He hadn't told _anyone _about his nightmares. He didn't even like to think about them to himself, that's how much they disturbed him.

"I—what?" Ari said confusedly, not noticing his horror. "I just noticed how tired you looked! I'm a nurse, remember? I do that. Assess people. It's a habit. And it's pretty obvious you're not sleeping well, you've got huge shadows under your eyes and you're snappy and jumpy and you're white as a sheet—those sleeping pills I managed to get a hold of were for _you_! I was going to give you them after the mission." She laughed humorlessly. "Guess I'll have to get some more now, they're not easy to get without a physician's orders but I'll manage…"

"Stop it," Bucky said automatically. "You don't need to do that."

"Yes, I do, because I _care_," she said. "Which is why I'm telling you to spare McGuire. Please, Soldier. If not for your sake—then for mine. Do it for me. Because I'm worried. I know you have to kill sometimes—but this is not one of those times. McGuire is unconscious. His men are locked up. We can easily take him back to 24 Pryde. I have some more sedatives in my bag, if he magically manages to somehow wake up. _What's _stopping you from taking him back?!"

Bucky stared at Ari and then down at McGuire. Ari was right…she was always right. His nightmares were all about murdering those who he loved most. Continuously killing left and right wasn't going to do anything to help stop them. And she was right, Steve would bring McGuire in. If Bucky wanted to repent for his sins, he needed to do as Steve did. Hell, even Sam Wilson would have brought McGuire in.

"You can't just kill everyone in your path," Ari said.

_Your work has been a gift to mankind. _

"Watch me," Bucky snarled and emptied his clip into McGuire's skull, going so far with the overkill that when he was done, McGuire's skull no longer resembled a human head but just a mess of shattered bones, liquid brains, and blood seeping across the floor and staining the bottom of Bucky's boots. He stared down at McGuire, breathing heavily, and when he looked up, the last thing he saw before he blacked out was the look of pure fury blazing in Ari's eyes.


End file.
